


in sickness and in health (trojan horse)

by Lambourn



Series: Vows [1]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Compliant for now, Canon-Typical Behavior, Discussion of Major Illness/Death, Fix-It of Sorts, Getting Back Together, Handwaving of Science and Medical Care, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mature Sexual Content, Mutual Pining, My 2x06 interpretation is neither yay nor nay, Post Season 2, Roswell New Mexico Big Bang 2020, Sick Fic, Some discussion of 2x06 within, Temporary Character Death, brief mention of the use of a face mask as a precaution, just the path to canon Malex in season 3, latex gloves and lab protocols for safety, some Covid-19 methods of safety depicted within, spoilers through 2x13, ymmv
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:28:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 52,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28170921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lambourn/pseuds/Lambourn
Summary: Alex has had wild weekends in the past on leave, where only a squadmate’s strong grip kept him upright for morning PT, but he was 29 now, down a leg, down a boyfriend, and he was the only force standing in the way of Project Shepherd, so when he woke up on a Monday with no memory of the last two days, it was a problem. He just had no idea just how big of a one it was.
Relationships: Mention of past Maria DeLuca/Michael Guerin, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes, mention of past Forrest Long/Alex Manes
Series: Vows [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2093370
Comments: 344
Kudos: 221
Collections: Roswell New Mexico Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Writing a long story in 2020 was a huge challenge for me, and I couldn't have done it without help of my betas who saw many different drafts of this story. Thank you to Britt, hal, christi, and nin for helping me keep the plot as coherent as I could while still including mentions of season 2 canon. Enormous thank-yous to tasyfa for your meticulous work with my shaky grasp of commas and my constant war with the past tense. Last, thank you to arielana who very kindly offered help in characterization and pointed out areas where the story needed a bit "more". 
> 
> Please check out the gorgeous art that Amanda (bisexualalienblast) created for this story- it's amazing, and I can't stop looking at it.

Alex woke up in his bed with three days of itchy beard growth and fuzzy, neglected teeth. 

In slow, groggy stages he licked at his dry lips. He had the feeling that something had lived a whole life cycle from birth until death inside his mouth judging by the sour taste. With each step on the path to full consciousness, his body remitted messages to his brain that were ill-fitting with his last memory of events. 

He remembered carefully shaving, splashing a soft scented balm on his skin and then opening a beer while he considered going out that night after work. He remembered thinking that he had spent entirely too much time on base or alone at his house, that he needed to have some outside stimulation of normal conversation that wasn’t regarding resource allocations and digital threat assessments. Now he was awake, his skin wrapped rigidly over his bones, two sizes too small with the feeling of neglected staleness.

Clumsy fingers reached blindly for his phone on the nightstand. He pressed the home key, unlocking it with a bleary eyeball, and paused. It was Monday. He had pondered going out on Friday after he arrived home from the base and then apparently nothing. What the fuck had gone on during that blank.

Had it finally happened? Had the weight of the war he fought both physically and emotionally, finally gained the upper hand in a dissociative state? There were incidents he remembered from before, floating through a situation without taking note of what was happening. Numb, drifting moments in a raucous crowd at the Wild Pony, or driving home from the base after a tense day with his father when he had first come back to Roswell, incidents where no turn or stop light registered after turning the engine over to start and off at his destination. He’d never lost more than an hour at most. 

This was at least 48 to 56 hours of unaccounted-for time.

There was a dull ache starting at his hip. Alex propped himself up and looked down to see his prosthesis still attached even though he was laid out on his bed in his sleep shorts and t-shirt. It was clue number 3 that something unusual had happened to him. He had always, ever since this had become his reality, taken care in removing his leg and washing out his liner before bed. The lectures about self-care and the dangers of neglect leading to losing even more of himself to a surgeon’s knife had kept him vigilant. 

Automatically his hand went to his forehead, half-expecting to feel the clammy wetness of a head wound, reminiscent of six months ago when he’d been the coerced guest of his father for a while until he traded captors for his brother Flint and Helena Ortecho. The small scar at his hairline, his souvenir of the attack outside of Michael’s trailer, was still there. The rest of his head was whole and unmarked despite the splitting headache that had pushed to the forefront.

Suspects flickered through his mind. 

Jesse Manes was in a grave decorated with his service record, lying next to his murdered great-uncle Tripp. Alex made biweekly trips to the cemetery to keep Tripp’s new grave tended and to leave his father small reminders of his failure. Under the list of Master Sergeant Jesse Manes military accomplishments, was a pride pin sparkling in rainbow rhinestones, a copy of a program listing ‘Alex Manes’ headlining a donation drive to the Trevor Project and a receipt thanking the deceased sergeant for his own generous contribution to keeping LGBTQ youth off the streets.

Flint was back in Germany after the ‘clerical error’ regarding his five year TDA to the Air Force’s New Mexico bases was uncovered in the aftermath of Jesse’s death. Alex might have pushed for it behind the scenes when it had become clear Max’s attack on his brother had only solidified his hatred of aliens. Lacking actionable evidence of a crime, Alex let an ocean be the safety barrier between his brother and Michael’s family. It was a less than satisfying solution. If only there had been enough proof for a court-martial and prison bars, but the lines between a classfied project and an illegal one were too muddled. 

Helena Ortecho was the last person to hold Alex captive. With Jesse Manes dead, she lacked any motivation for a repeat of hostile actions. Her antipathy toward the Manes family was narrow in focus, only wishing revenge for Jim Valenti. However intrigued Alex was by Helena's financial backing in her attempt to take Jesse down, he had left it alone once it was clear she was not a threat to Michael and his family.

The final threat that Alex considered, the alien calling himself Mr Jones, had been locked in a stasis pod after he had used his chance at freedom to break into Area 51. The stowaway that had originally sabotaged the ship in 1947 had attempted to gain access to some of the larger crash pieces in hopes of activating a communication beacon to the alien’s home planet. The damage control he did with Isobel’s help in gently altering memories, had kept the military from launching a full scale investigation, but the long nights of covering up that mess had cost Alex more than just sleep. 

There was a gap in Alex’s closet, where for a brief time, space had been made for Forrest. 

As it turned out, all the room for belongings meant very little when it came to being closed out from a conversation. Changing the subject obviously when Michael was there had only fueled suspicion of possible infidelity from Forrest. While that could have been repaired, the same conversational tic happening with Kyle and Maria had been harder to smooth over. Forrest, after months of dating, had been less patient about being held at arm's-length when it came to Alex’s secrets. The secrets that Alex kept for other people. Michael’s secret. 

The pain in his chest at the breakup was still more of a gentle ache of loss, of the potential, when compared to the jack-hammer of fury chipping away in his temples currently. Three days missing from his memory cut through the blurry confusion and pushed him into action as he gripped his phone tighter.

Threat assessment first he decided, as he pulled up his security cameras on his phone. Rolling back the footage to his last memory of stepping out on his patio, he watched himself drink his beer before the video went black for a window of thirty minutes. The next blank spot coincided with one am Monday morning. 

His phone had no incoming messages, which meant no one had noticed his absence over the weekend. 

Missing camera footage paired with missing time lent credibility toward an outside actor. Alex ran his tongue over his teeth again, wondering if the taste in his throat was the residue of a sedative. He swiped out of his security app and brought up his contacts. Sliding a finger down past the G’s, past the O’s, before he reached nearly the end of the names. After he sent a message to his assistant and the duty roster chief claiming a sick day, there was really only one person to call next.

***

“Whoa, what the hell happened to you?” 

Kyle Valenti had the typical bedside manner of a surgeon, Alex observed, wincing at the blunt assessment. Cutting straight to the point without the buffering greeting of ‘hello’ or even ‘nice weather we’re having’.

Clutching his backpack strap over his shoulder, Kyle’s too sharp gaze swept downward to focus on the tied up pant leg. Almost three years without his leg, and only Michael, then later after months of dating, Forrest, had had the honor of seeing him without his prosthesis. Kyle jerked his gaze upward to take in the dark beard growth on Alex’s face before looking past Alex’s shoulder into the house in alarm. 

“You didn’t think this was a social call did you?” Alex pushed his door wider, and hopped backwards on his crutches to allow room for Kyle to enter. “Thanks for making a house call, Doc.”

“About that, Alex,” Kyle started, keeping the door open with a slightly guilty expression. “I wasn’t exactly alone when you called so-”

Before Alex could fully prepare himself to alter his story, Maria’s hand caught the edge of the front door. “I was getting a check up and begged for a ride along, Alex, so don’t be mad at Kyle.”

The phrase ‘check up’ pulled Alex’s attention down to Maria’s bare wrists, devoid of the pollen-infused bracelet. At first, all of his time and energy had been swept up in nurturing his fledgling relationship with Forrest, so he had missed the initial news of Maria’s breakup with Michael. Then he had run into Michael, alone at Planet 7, scouting out the crowd for company. Forrest’s watchful gaze had kept the subject light between them, with an offhand ‘it didn’t work out’ as explanation. It wasn’t until he had tracked down Maria for some long overdue boy talk that he had obtained the real details surrounding the split.

Mimi Deluca’s vision had saved lives at the Crashcon, but there had been still far-reaching consequences of the plot by Jesse and Flint. Property damage from the fire, bad publicity of panicked crowds, and the public death of a well known military figure had caused vendors to demand refunds and compensation from the city. Maria had counted on a big return for the Wild Pony from their participation in Crashcon, only to have more bills than profits in the end. 

Nothing Alex could have said would have moved Maria from her certain belief that she could have done more to prevent the failure of the festival if she hadn’t had her own powers dampened by the pollen. It was a proverbial line in the sand for her. The potential for brain damage or not, she wanted to explore that side of her abilities and Michael was not on board with her decisions.

Even though Maria was the psychic, Alex had enough experience in reviewing intelligence to notice when he wasn’t hearing the whole story. Those well-honed instincts had kicked in when Maria had assured him that their parting was over irreconcilable differences regarding her abilities and nothing else.

“Come in then,” Alex sighed, before moving down the hallway to his living room. “It’s not a big deal, okay?”

“You’re home on a Monday, you haven’t shaved, something’s up,” Maria argued logically. Alex was already regretting not shaving and putting his prosthesis on, even though the swollen limb had made that impossible. Showing any type of weakness violated the rules of conduct for a Manes man. The old Sun Tzu proverb of _‘appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak’_ had been fully adopted into how his family operated from a young age. He was still ashamed he had forgotten the first half of the saying after his father’s stroke.

The pyrrhic victory was having his father abduct him over a spaceship piece that he was actually ready to hand over freely to him. His agency removed, his only crimes remained were the words he uttered to Michael that night. Those bitter, regretted words, grown from the seeds of forgetting who he was to his father. His father’s bigotry would have never allowed him to show weakness to Alex. The crown of deluded foolery was knocked completely off his head with that single blow outside the trailer. What had stopped his full descent into self-loathing was also ironically the words of Sun Tzu. _‘The whole secret to victory lies in confusing the enemy, so that he cannot fathom real intent,’_ and that had allowed Alex the grace in working toward forgiving himself the way Michael had forgiven him.

Pushing away those thoughts, Alex slowly lowered himself on his couch, stowing his crutches between the couch and armchair. He allowed himself one full deep breath to push the nettled discomfort of admitting weakness down again. Two sets of concerned, dark eyes were watching him in turn, Maria from next to him and Kyle across. “I think something happened to me over the weekend, and I called you,” Alex nodded to Kyle directly, “so you could take some blood and run a drug test, just in case.”

“What the-”

Alex held up his hand to stall Kyle’s exclamation, “Whatever nightmare scenario you’re thinking, don’t. It’s nothing like that. I’m just missing some time.”

Maria made a soft noise of frustration and reached for his hand. “Don’t downplay this, okay? Thinking that someone drugged you _is_ a nightmare scenario.” The intensity in her voice reminded Alex of what had happened during the night of the gala thrown in honor of reopening the alien museum. 

One of the details that Michael had shared during that ill-fated drive up to investigate Caulfield prison had been about Noah and exactly how they had figured out who the fourth alien was. Maria had been a weapon used by Noah, some false smoke to throw them off his scent and Noah had done it without remorse. Afterwards, Maria had never spoken of it, even during her anger after Rosa had revealed the truth about aliens and all the lies. Judging from the look on her face though, that experience had left its mark. 

There was an instinct to keep downplaying it, to minimize her concerns, because of course, whatever he went through couldn’t possibly compare with being drugged by an alien serial killer in his mind. Except the details were blank, so he had no basis to compare his experience to hers in the first place. “I’m still trying to piece together what happened, whether it’s worth getting upset over. All I know is a drug test can rule a few things out.”

“How much time are we talking?” Kyle asked as he unzipped his bag and started pulling out a soft-padded set of needles and vials. “And any other symptoms that you’ve noticed? Like headache, dry mouth, rash, tingling in your extremities?”

“You just described almost every R&R I had between 2012 and 2018.” Those years away from Roswell were filled with those trips, where he’d carefully traveled a hundred miles for what his squadron called offbase I & I, intoxication and intercourse, with nameless men with curly hair.

Neither Maria nor Kyle cracked a smile.

Under the twin looks of disapproval, Alex sighed again and admitted, “I’m missing a couple of days. I remember Friday night and then I woke up here this morning. I have a headache, I’m pretty sure I kept my leg on that whole time, which is why I don’t have it on now. But other than that, I haven’t a clue regarding what happened.”

Maria frowned, holding onto his hand tighter. “That’s a long time to be drugged.” She tilted her head toward him, still frowning deeply, and a shiver slipped down Alex’s spine at the expression. Long acquaintance with her told him that she was using her abilities to try to pick up a read from him. 

Reflexively Alex blanked his thoughts as best he could and didn’t dare look around at his surroundings, at the glaring gap among his things. A pinch of a needle distracted him, to which Kyle met his reproachful look with an innocent shrug as he drew a full vial of blood.

“I’m not picking up anything from your recent past, other than you’re deeply uncomfortable about something, and nothing about the future,” Maria pronounced, before gently releasing his hand. “I’m still trying to figure out this ability, sometimes I just touch something, and I get a flash of the past, or of the future. Emotions are still the clearest.”

“Not knowing what happened to me isn’t fun, that’s for sure,” Alex replied, even as he pushed down a small surge of fear. He watched as Kyle skillfully swapped vials with a raised eyebrow. “Leave some for my veins, man.”

“I’d like to run a couple of panels, and I also want to send one to Liz. She’s got a state-of-the-art cutting-edge lab in Los Angeles. Their equipment is a hundred times more sensitive than Roswell’s. I mean if you blacked out because of the usual suspects like Rohypnol or lorazepam I will be able to tell. But something like butyricol isn’t on the usual tox panel.” Kyle gently pressed his thumb against the needle before withdrawing it. He expertly capped the needle and pressed a wad of cotton to the site to stem the blood loss. With his eyes trained on Alex’s arm, Kyle continued with a deliberately casual tone, “Is it possible this was a PTSD episode?”

Covering Kyle’s grip with his own hand, Alex jerked his arm free, holding the cotton in place on his own. “It’s possible, but I’m hoping it’s not likely. That sort of longterm episode would be a serious escalation in my health, to the point I would be medically discharged over it.”

Kyle raised his hands in surrender. “I just had to ask, okay?”

“There’s only a few options for what could have happened, right?” Maria spoked up gently, to dispel the tension. “Physical, mental or alien. Kyle can check the physical with the blood panel, we can hope it’s not mental, but who’s going to rule out the alien?”

Unfortunately Maria had a point. Even though Mr. Jones was in a status pod, it was still possible there were other survivors of the crash that didn’t end up in Caulfield or weren’t one of the three child foundlings of Roswell. Noah had certainly been able to escape detection until his greed for power and fear of being revealed had ultimately left him vulnerable to discovery. A superior species capable of space travel would surely be able to track a set of ships to their final destination, especially if it differed from a flight plan.

There was only one person he could go to next to rule out the alien option. 

It was uncomfortable enough for Alex to dodge concern from Kyle and Maria. They both knew him in varying ways, from his disclosures to Kyle about his father’s abuse to Maria knowing just about every secret he’d had from the age of fourteen until now, including the gist of his past history with Michael. He could trust them not to press too hard on a revealed helplessness; they had earned that much grace from him. While seeing his tied off pant leg or disheveled beard was one thing, they had both thankfully missed the open yawning absence of Forrest in his house. The gaps on the bookshelves, the single set of used dishware, the bare place in the mud room where another set of shoes had once been. He didn’t want to look too deeply at the whys surrounding his reticence in revealing just how deeply he had let Forrest Long into his life and how quickly that had led to failure.

However, those fragile spots would find no shelter from the likes of Isobel Evans.

On a good day she barely abided by common courtesy, like knocking on a closed door, since she had shed her persona of Stepford wife. To invite Isobel Evans into his mind was to surrender all hope of privacy to a not hostile force, but not exactly a friendly one either. They had successfully teamed up to cover for the actions of Mr. Jones at Area 51, but that was a pact based on common ground; protection.

Alex rubbed at his aching temples, “We both know who I need to call next, I just need to brace myself for that.”

“I thought you and Guerin were fine?” Kyle asked, as Maria pointedly avoided his quick check to her for confirmation on that, and pulled off his latex gloves to trash with the used syringe. 

“We are fine. We’re friends.” Most of the time. Dating Forrest and encountering Michael in public had always been a pleasant but awkward encounter, with Michael maintaining the most bland and welcoming smile up front while Alex had to actively push down the feeling that he was betraying him somehow by being with another man. Even watching Michael leave Planet 7 hand-in-hand with another man, or arm-in-arm with a woman at Saturn’s Rings had done little to lessen that feeling for Alex. He didn’t know what to think that he never saw Michael picking anyone up at the Wild Pony. However, telling his rebelliously stubborn heart that Michael was content with friendship, that even after breaking up with Maria, he wasn’t looking to Alex for anything more than that, had resulted in escalating his relationship with Forrest prematurely in retrospect.

A half empty closet proved to Alex that pushing for a benchmark of being over Michael with a live-in boyfriend while also keeping that part of his life at arm’s-length from Forrest had been a disaster. He could only dread what Isobel Evans would make of how he was living his life.

“Well, whatever you’re worried about, I hate to say it, but Isobel Evans can probably rule out both a dissociative episode and alien possession. And she’s surprisingly good at keeping secrets, like none of you know I won second prize at Planet 7’s amateur night.” 

Maria laughed, leaning forward eagerly for details, “Well we do now!”

Taking the subject change to something lighter gratefully, Alex made a considering noise as he stroked the beard on his face. “Let me guess, you performed ‘You Belong With Me’ while wearing your high school letterman jacket?” 

Kyle’s mouth dropped open before he brushed it off with a playful injured dignity, “Lucky guess, and here I thought Maria was the psychic.”

“You don’t have to be psychic to just know someone,” Maria replied, before meeting Alex’s eyes significantly. “The core of who we are doesn’t really change even as we get older, we just tell ourselves we should be past it.” Alex shifted under her gaze, knowing that she was talking about Michael, before her smile widened into something teasing as she turned back to Kyle, “Liz told us all about how you sent her Taylor Swift songs during your freshman year at Michigan.”

“No one outgrows Taylor, you just grow to appreciate her more.” Kyle stood up with an eye roll, shouldering his bag with a proud smirk. “And my tactics worked, she forgave me in college, and now she’s the only person I would abuse my hospital credentials for, well I guess you make the second one, Alex. You guys are lucky my love language is performing secret blood tests and answering cryptic phone calls.”

*** 

The presence of Michael’s truck parked in front of Isobel’s immaculately tended house almost convinced Alex to keep driving past and to try another day. Even after spending the last day recovering from a reignited case of hypervigilance and managing a half-day on base attempting a mimicry of normalcy, Alex wasn’t sure if his carefully rebuilt mask would survive Michael and his usual head-to-toe sweep that left him feeling transparent.

He touched his now-smooth face after parking and then cast a contemplative look at his cane. The swelling had rescinded slowly on his stump, still too tender and inflamed for his newest prosthesis with the blade, but wearing an older model had left him feeling unbalanced and in need of a mobility aid. Michael would clock that change in a second.

No plan survives first contact with the enemy, he thought, surrendering any hope of keeping this under his control as he approached the impressively large front door, a visible mark of wealth, with its chevrons carved in the hardwood and old distressed metal pieces framing out the knob and window views. It would look more at home guarding the entry of an old-world library in Italy than the front of a single-family house in the midst of the southwestern desert.

The lawn, artificially green with sprinkler heads and well-tended flowerbeds reminded Alex of just how far the wealth divide was between the siblings. Noah’s law practice and day trading were still paying for a landscaping company to keep the homeowners association appeased, since Alex couldn’t picture Isobel pushing a lawn mower or edging the driveway. In glaring contrast, Michael’s trailer was against the low sand hills of the mesa, surrounded by derelict scrapyard vehicles pitted with weeds and the danger of rattlesnakes. 

Even with Noah dead and gone, Isobel was still content to live in a genteel planned community of homes that only differed from each other by their various shades of sandstone and peach-colored paint. The uniformity and by extension, message of conformity made Alex itch, as he knocked on the door. He had enough of that message from his sterile surroundings at work, he couldn’t imagine coming home to it.

After no answer, Alex peeked through the windows, gripping his cane, and sighed. Despite the presence of parked vehicles, there was no one moving in the background. He felt confident in walking around the back of the house toward Isobel’s patio, her own grasp of privacy and boundaries too tenuous to complain about the liberties he was taking. That thought didn’t last long as Alex rounded the side of the house and found them.

Michael was laying flat on his back on Isobel’s outdoor couch with his eyes closed, his head pillowed in her lap and her hand over his forehead. His long denim clad legs dangled over the couch arm, his feet bare and vulnerable looking. A pair of boots and socks were resting just outside the patio stones, along with a folded up flannel shirt and looped belt buckle leaving him looking soft and unarmored in his plain white t-shirt.

Isobel’s hand was just resting on his forehead, her own eyes closed as she sat upright with relaxed shoulders and her hair sloppily piled into a bun on the top of her head. Alex got the impression he had interrupted something more spiritual and healing than her athleisure clothing hinted at.

Maybe he should have called. As he turned to leave, Alex’s cane scraped at some loose decorative river rocks that spilled out between the wide, slate patio stones. Immediately Isobel’s eyes opened, catching sight of Alex hovering at the edge of her backyard.

Seconds later, Michael shot upward from the couch with a gasp, the tranquil spell between them broken. 

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Alex called, awkwardly and then gestured toward the house. “I knocked, there was no answer, but I saw Guerin’s truck-”

“So you invited yourself back here. Nice.” Isobel smiled with a hint of bite, “We were nearly done, so it was good timing.” She turned toward her brother, placing her hand on Michael’s leg as he bent half-over, raking his fingers through his hair, “I’ll be in the house if you need me-”

“Actually, I’m here to talk to you, Isobel.” Alex balanced on his cane, trying not to flush as Michael glanced up between his hands to narrow his gaze on it. “Not that it isn’t good to see you both.”

Instead of taking offense, Michael smiled faintly at learning he wasn’t behind Alex’s visit and moved to gather his discarded socks and shoes. “Isobel is helping me develop my mind, so I’ll be better prepared in case we run into another Mr. Jones,” Michael explained, standing to bend over to pull on his boots. 

Alex tried to keep himself from looking at the strip of skin revealed at the back of Michael’s jeans as he stretched downward to straighten the cuffs of his jeans over the top of his boots. The rounded knob of his spine before it flattened and curled into Michael’s tailbone was the perfect place for Alex’s mouth. Maybe one day he would be able to see a place on Michael and not think about how it tasted or the way it felt against his own body.

Isobel snorted, letting Alex know his efforts at subterfuge had failed even as he forced himself to look away from Michael. She raised her eyebrow in delight and spread her palms wide, “I’m flattered to be so in demand today. So what can I do for you, Alex?” 

It took a herculean effort for Alex to refocus his thoughts and ignore Michael, as he slotted his heavy belt buckle back into place with those clever, well practiced hands. It was the remembered punctuation to every one of their sexual encounters in the past, the big, can’t-possibly-look-away-from, buckle sliding recklessly open to signal his intent and then the buckle hooking closed, slower and more deliberate, to mark the return to reality. 

Right. Reality and the purpose of this visit. Alex rubbed at the back of his neck uneasily, “Um, it’s not a big deal and I can go if you guys are busy-”

“My turn to say if you need me, you know where to find me, cause I gotta head to work soon,” Michael interjected, cutting off Alex’s obvious stalling tactics. It was another mark of their friendship, built on more solid ground now, that they were able to grant each other reprieves instead of judgments with a silent request for space. He still gave Alex a concerned look, lingering over the presence of the cane, but Michael didn’t protest or press Alex for answers, instead he just leaned in to hug Isobel goodbye. 

The second awkward dance commenced for Alex as Michael drew near to him, his pulse picking up in anticipation as it always did when Michael was there. They weren’t quite at the point of hugging each other at greetings and farewells in their friendship. In the past, Alex had wondered if Michael could sense the dangerous temptation bodily contact inspired in Alex still, even with a boyfriend. Except now, he didn’t even have that as a shield.

Michael laid his palm on Alex’s shoulder to squeeze gently in acknowledgment, probably completely unaware of the turmoil under the surface. “If I can help, call me, okay?”

“Okay,” Alex nodded dumbly, and then Michael tipped his fingers in a lazy salute of goodbye to Isobel again before striding smoothly away through the backyard to the street. After a moment, the throaty purr of the Chevy’s classic engine caught, revved and faded away into the background. 

Isobel stood up and headed toward her backdoor, “Okay, so drop that sappy expression of yours and come tell me what’s going on, Alex Manes. Do you drink red or white?”

“Um, red, but-”

“I only have white.”

Rolling his eyes, Alex followed her into the cool interior of her kitchen while she opened her fridge to pull out an open bottle. “Then why did you ask?”

“You seem to like pointless or rhetorical questions, like waiting for Michael to leave before telling me what’s going on- because you know as soon as we’re done here, he’ll be back to ask me about you.” Isobel poured two healthy glasses of wine, and handed on to Alex before gesturing to her living room. “And we don’t keep secrets from one another, at least not any more.”

“I know, and honestly, I’m counting on that.” Alex lowered himself to the couch, letting go of his cane to massage the ill-fitting nagging grip of his prosthesis. “Recent history has told me that Michael doesn’t react reasonably on this subject, and you’re probably the best one to tell him.” He had Isobel’s full attention now. “I’m here because I need you to go into my mind and see if you can find any memories of last weekend. I think someone might have abducted me.”

“You think that someone abducted you, but _you don’t know for sure_?” Isobel gulped a large swallow of wine before rocking back against her sofa. “Uh yeah, Michael’s going to flip out, so good call on waiting for him to leave.”

“All I can tell you, is that I came home from the base Friday night and then woke up in my house Monday morning with no memory of what happened in between. I had Kyle run my blood yesterday, which didn’t come back with anything obvious when it comes to standard long-term sedation.” 

“Are you thinking another alien is involved?” Isobel frowned slightly, remembering the recent disaster that Mr. Jones had engineered for everyone, but Alex in particular, during his attempt to access the recovered spaceships held by the military. “I can tell you, our beardy friend is locked away for good. The cage Nora built can only be opened from the outside, and trust me, no one is letting that one out again.”

“I don’t know what to think.” He looked around at the decor of her house, all the picture frames showed Isobel with Max or Michael or were gorgeous shots of the New Mexico desert sky in various stages of a sunset or a sunrise. Not one picture of Noah Bracken had survived the post-funeral purge of shared belongings. Alex wondered if Isobel’s mother thought it strange that evidence of her son-in-law’s existence disappeared completely after his “accidental” death.

With the engineered blackouts, multiple murders and all of the secrets, he could hardly blame Isobel for the scorched earth policy. Thinking about Isobel’s past, Alex spoke up gently, “Your experience of missing time, was it always brought on by- by someone else?”

“You mean my murderous dead husband?” Isobel filled in, taking another sip of her wine. She flattened her lips, and shook her head. “Not really. I was attacked as a child, that’s the source of my trigger. Now, he made sure to take advantage of it, and extended the time, but the act of going away? That was all me in the beginning, it was only under his control toward the end.”

“That’s what I’m worried about, that it’s possible this was just me.” Alex stared down at his wine glass, cupped around his hands. “I’ve checked out before, gone somewhere safe in my head or just put myself on autopilot, but — you know, never for this long or without a trigger being hit.”

“And you’re sure you didn’t encounter a trigger on Friday night?”

Alex half-smiled at the question, “The only person who could put me in that sort of state is dead.”

The name went unsaid, but Isobel wasn’t a fool. He couldn’t be sure what Michael might have shared with her about his past upbringing, but Alex assumed it was enough for the context of Jesse Manes being a monster to both aliens and his own son was clear. She didn’t comment on the sensitive subject, just nodded in acceptance, “I assume since no one noticed you were gone, that Forrest Long is no longer in the picture?”

He drained his glass in answer and placed it on the coffee table. “Next question.”

“I don’t know if Michael has described what my power is like, but in the mind-space I have ultimate power and you won’t be able to hide anything.”

“He said there’s no way to avoid your questions, but that _you_ have control over what subjects you seek.” Alex leaned forward, letting the gentle pleasantry between them drop. “You were just in Michael’s mind, do you know why Maria broke up with him then?” Isobel met his gaze before dropping it to acknowledge the point he was making. “Exactly, you respected his privacy over his relationships, so I trust that you will respect mine in turn.”

“I guess that answers my question, Maria fed you the same line Michael has fed me, that they weren’t meant to be and are better off as friends, and you’re right, I haven’t gone digging for the truth in his head.” Her chastened response to his pointed needling evaporated in a moment as her eyes turned speculative. “Of course, I’m fairly certain I know the source of it without digging, and if you thought about it for a moment, you would too.” That was Isobel Evans, never one to remain meek after a volley.

In that moment, Alex fervently wished that there was another option, another alien who had the ability to examine his mind without stumbling over the jumbled feelings he had. What had his life come to that he was actively wishing Max Evans had a thimbleful of psychic ability in order to avoid this?

Isobel finished her glass of wine, resting it next to Alex’s and rubbed her hands together in anticipation. “However, your boundaries about your relationship are noted, so do you still want my help with this?”

Lacking for any other option, Alex nodded. He took a deep breath to steady himself, and moved over as Isobel closed the gap between them on the couch. With a quirk of her eyebrow, she leaned forward to rummage in the drawer of her coffee table to pull out a new, unsealed bottle of nail polish remover and shrugged at his questioning look, “Humans take effort, it’s different from communicating with Max or Michael. You won’t really notice anything I’m doing, but just try to stay relaxed, okay?”

With that instruction, Isobel mirrored his own deep breath and then reached out for his hand to hold in hers. Other than the slightly warmer-than-human feel of her skin on his, she was entirely correct that Alex felt no change. He could allow himself a slightly charitable thought toward his father and brother, that the fear they had toward aliens wasn’t without grounds. The power to read or manipulate someone’s mind, and to do in such an unobtrusive way that no one was the wiser, was unsettling.

The command was to relax, but Alex couldn’t help but fidget in place as he held Isobel’s hand. The pointed reminder to not think of an elephant always resulted in a three ring circus act, and this was no different. That last final fight with Forrest took center stage in his mind even as he tried to focus on the decorations of Isobel’s house. The mix of clean modern lines with an antique western motif just reminded him of his own disconnect and how hard he had tried to force things. _“You keep disappearing, Alex, and this work excuse is wearing thin. I served too, and not once did that require leaving at 1 am. You’re in cybersecurity in New Mexico, not working at the Pentagon.”_ Drained and bruised from bringing Mr. Jones under control, there was nothing he could say in his own defense.

The betrayed expression that Forrest had worn while Alex remained tongue-tied was one thing, but it had been the pessimistic nod that signaled he had known all along that this was doomed that had left the still-bleeding wound in Alex. That was his fear, that even with his father dead and buried, he was cursed to fail when it came to a relationship. The closet from the military, the voice that whispered poison in his head, the secrets about aliens he had to keep, the fact he had tried for eleven plus years to fall out of love with Michael Guerin without success; it all added up to one sad conclusion. 

Before he could follow that obsessive thought down to the worn path to Michael, Isobel opened her eyes and reached for the nail polish remover, dropping her hold on Alex’s hand. Three long swallows, before she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, “Good news, I found no sign of an alien manipulating your thoughts or hitchhiking in your body. The bad news, that leaves humans, and we’ve got about seven billion suspects to rule out.”

“Kyle didn’t think I was sedated the whole time, any chance I was awake at some point?”

Isobel looked apologetic as she shook her head. “I was with you on the porch, that drink you had Friday night was definitely spiked with something. I caught the last clear thought you had, that you thought you were going to fall down. So whatever it was in that beer, it was fast acting and shut everything down quickly.”

He made a note to review his security footage again. There was another blank spot somewhere in his recordings to hide a break-in to doctor the alcohol in his house and it was subtle enough that it had raised no alarms. “So someone drugged me on Friday, no sign of a dissociative episode, so I guess that is a relief. Fast acting but not long-lasting, and something experimental since the dose from Monday morning didn’t register in a standard panel of tests.”

“Sounds military.”

“Skilled enough to get past my security, and knew me well enough to know I even had a system in the first place.”

“Heard from your brother Flint lately?” Isobel asked, still sipping lightly from her bottle of acetone. 

Reflexively, Alex frowned at the veiled accusation, even if his brother had earned it after the last kidnapping. “He’s back in Germany, it wasn’t him.”

“Is he in Germany the same way your dad was in Niger?” 

There was nothing Alex could say in defense to that. Once upon a time he had made a miscalculation about his father after he had sent him to Africa and Kyle had nearly been murdered in the aftermath in the Project Shepherd bunker. It was embarrassing to remember he had ended up repeating his mistake last spring, forgetting that his father was not to be trusted and Michael had been caught up in it as a result. 


	2. Chapter 2

As Alex turned the corner of the street that his house was on, he realized that the vintage Chevy truck was once again parked next to his destination. Twice in one day. He glanced at his watch, after leaving Isobel’s house he had made a quick stop at the bunker to check on his brother’s whereabouts which had left Isobel exactly an hour to update Michael on what had happened. As far as the duty logs mentioned, his brother Flint was still safely attached to the weapon development operation at Grafenwoehr Army Base.

He drove past Michael’s truck, not daring to look at him, and parked in his driveway. The engine on the Explorer dropped into silence while Alex kept both hands wrapped around the steering wheel for support. Movement registered, he heard the slam of Michael’s truck door. Closing his eyes he counted to five to settle his nerves. He could do this. 

He had let Isobel Evans into his mind, so he could face her brother, he reminded himself. They were friends. Just friends. Friends checked in and were worried about one another. Alex kept up the pep talk to himself as he remembered his own worried check-ins at the trailer during the crisis with Mr. Jones.

Michael was standing just outside his car door, watching him with eyes bright with concern as Alex slowly gathered his belongings, stalling for every moment he could. The last thing he curled his fingers around was his cane, support or shield, he left that thought unnamed.

“Isobel works fast,” Alex commented, climbing out of his car with his voice carefully light. 

“Wasn’t Isobel.” Michael stepped obediently aside and fell into step behind Alex toward his front door. “Maria was at Sanders when I got there for work, she filled me in on your little weekend adventure.”

“And you’re here to what, check on me? You saw me earlier, I’m fine.” Alex leaned on his cane as he dug into his mailbox pulling out slick junk mail advertisements among his bills. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Michael was giving him the standard ear to toe sweep of apprehension. 

“Alex.” 

The quiet plea from Michael deflated some of Alex’s bravado. He sighed in response, pulling open his front door and nodded toward the inside of the house in invitation. “This wasn’t like last time, okay?” Punching in his security code, the system’s warning flashed orange then green chirping in acceptance. The heavy front door swung shut behind Michael, re-arming the system. Normally he only armed it while he was asleep, but recent circumstances had changed that.

“No, the last time someone took you, at least I knew where to look,” Michael pointed out, following Alex through the house, still scanning the surroundings suspiciously, as if a hit squad might be lurking behind Alex’s piano. “Your dad is dead, and you shipped Flint overseas.”

“And he’s still there as far as I can tell,” Alex placed his mail on the counter top and headed into the kitchen. “So far I’m dealing with a break-in and a weekend black-out, most people would call that a fun night in college.” He pulled open his fridge, and started to empty the sparse shelves of its contents. There was a container of tofu stir-fry that could probably find a home in the trash, left over from Forrest. Sedatives would have been an improvement on the taste, he mused to himself.

At least Forrest had tried to keep them both fed after discovering Alex’s skills in the kitchen were utilitarian at best, with a heavy emphasis on grilling burgers, steaks, and potatoes. The menu of a ‘real man’ according to his dad. Five and half months of a relationship with a vegan had ended up being a two-fold rebellion against childhood programming, but a hungry one at times. 

Michael jumped up on the counter, not standing on any ceremony in Alex’s house, as his cowboy boots clicked against the cabinets. “Maria said you would do that too, downplay it. You’re worried enough about what happened that you let my sister in your head, so that makes me worried enough to be here now.” His eyes widened as Alex examined each of his bottled beers, before placing a churchkey on the caps, opening the entire six-pack. “I thought I was the alcoholic here-”

“You’re hardly that,” Alex rolled his eyes, having heard that label before from some of their mutual friends, but he had never bought it as accurate. From his experience with his squad mates and his dad, he knew what an alcoholic looked like and that wasn’t Michael. Reckless and looking for a fight, he could agree with, but that self-destructive impulse wasn’t born in the bottle. The bottle was just the vehicle of immolation for Michael. “Isobel said my last memory was the beer tasting funny and hitting me hard, whoever did this had no way of knowing what I would eat or drink that night,” he continued, upending the beer into the kitchen sink.

“Yeah, if anything at all, you could have been out on a date that night.” 

Michael’s observation was light and friendly, but Alex couldn’t help but turn his face back to the refrigerator to finish his task. The cover provided by the fridge door helped him admit, “No, I mean, there was no chance of a date that night. Um, Forrest and I broke up.”

“I know,” Michael replied gently, and then shrugged when Alex left the safety of the fridge to face him in surprise. “After Maria filled me in, I might have dropped by the library to talk to him. I just wanted to give him a heads up, that I was going to be driving by your house for a while, so he didn’t get the wrong idea. Turns out, I was the one with the wrong idea.”

“I was going to tell you- well, everyone,-”

He held up both hands to halt Alex’s weak explanation, before raking his fingers through his curls sheepishly. “It’s fine, Alex. I’m the last one to throw stones about sharing the news of a breakup.” 

“If you knew about- wait, was that a test, your remark about being on a date? Were you trying to see if I was going to tell you?” Alex opened the lid to his garbage can to finish trashing the rest of the food containers with force, trying to swallow the feeling of hurt. Their friendship was supposed to be past these sorts of games by now. “I guess I’m glad I passed it then.”

That put Michael into motion swiftly, as he hopped off the counter to step between Alex and the exit from the kitchen. “Hey wait a second, no, it wasn’t a test, I genuinely thought you could have been on a date. Forrest Long isn’t the only fish in the sea, and seriously, look at you, you should be out every Friday night with a nice guy.”

Alex glanced at his trash, sparse of actual food outside of takeout containers, overrun with condiments and empty beer bottles and wondered how he could possibly be considered a catch when he barely passed the test of functional adult. Too long living on base or following someone else’s orders.

“Well, I wasn’t out anywhere. I came home from the base and I needed a drink after my week, whoever targeted me knew the chances were pretty good I’d open that tainted beer. They even knew the brand to swap out. It’s a little disconcerting that my routines are that predictable and sad.”

“You think someone might be using your own system against you?” Michael gave the interior of the house another look, focusing on the camera mounted in the living room. 

“I would say no, but recent history has taught me the value of being humble.” It wasn’t just his father’s playacting that challenged his hubris. The connection of Genoryx as an Air Force security contractor with a well funded and hidden biomedical branch had managed to set off a chain reaction of events that had led Max to destroy the lab and sent Liz to Los Angeles. No system was immune to hacking, including his own security. “Not sure if disconnecting my system is wise or not. Because if I know when the footage is blank that is at least somewhat informative.”

Michael nodded thoughtfully, still casting a wary eye at the camera but left the subject alone to push past him to take over the chore of tying up the trash. “Well, between the two of us here, we should have a good idea if someone comes back.”

“Two of us?”

“Back when I thought Forrest was here, I was okay with just doing a drive by every couple of hours, but if you think I’m leaving you alone in this house with some unknown threat out there-”

“Guerin no-”

“You can argue, but I’m either sleeping on your couch Alex, or I’m sleeping in my truck parked in your driveway. It’s up to you but those are your only two options.” Michael stated firmly, and lifted the trash. “I’m gonna take this outside, and then I’ll be back with my stuff. You should decide on if we’re ordering pizza or Chinese food for dinner.”

***

An empty pizza box, splayed open and covered in grease stains, hogged most of the open space on his coffee table. Alex leaned back on his couch, feeling comfortably full, and updated his standing grocery order on his phone, now doubled in light of his new unplanned house guest. Michael set a fresh glass of tap water down near to Alex’s elbow before collapsing next to him. Seeing Michael move through his house with bare feet and ease, poked at old wounds inside his heart that mused over ‘what might have been’. 

Absently his hand dropped to his stump to massage away the still lingering soreness from his black-out weekend. The second thing Michael insisted on after Alex gave him the alarm codes to the house, was for Alex to get off his feet to rest, particularly his metal one. It was probably a good thing that Forrest had left him, because if he had seen Alex follow Michael’s suggestion without a fight, he would have gone ballistic over it. Along with the secret keeping, Alex’s inability to accept help or gracefully respond to voiced concern, had been reason number two behind their breakup.

‘It’s different because it’s Michael’ would not have gone over well either in explanation.

Alex pushed aside his thoughts about that failure, and met Michael’s warm gold-brown gaze. “So how long are you staying?”

“That kinda depends on a couple of things, what’s your hot water pressure like?” he drawled lazily in response. Michael seemed to read the unamused look from Alex and smiled wider in return. “Seriously though, it does. Like if you figure out who’s after you, then we take care of ‘em, okay-” He rubbed his hands together, the well known gesture of ‘job done’. “Back to normal then and I’m out of your hair.” 

“That might take some time, they’ve covered their tracks well from what I can tell. Liz just now received the blood sample I had Kyle take to run for analysis. From my experience, shadowy conspiracies can take weeks, even months to find, let alone subdue. You know that from Project Shepherd.”

“Well then that brings some other factors into play.”

Alex raised his eyebrow at Michael’s hedging words. “Such as?”

For a moment he wrestled with his thoughts before blurting out, “Sleeping. I need to be able to sleep some, not even my physiology can manage more than four days without it. Last time-” Michael looked away from him. “I didn’t sleep last time.”

“Guerin-”

“Until I met Helena Ortecho, I thought you were dead, Alex. Then while I was working for her, I kept thinking, if she needed to kill off all alien life here to avenge Jim Valenti, it was worth it to me if you were okay. It wasn’t until I realized her plan was more personal and about Jesse that- Still nearly got you killed then too.” Michael broke off, coughing a little in embarrassment. “Anyway, I don’t want to go through that again, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to be crashing on your couch until I can convince my brain that you’re safe.”

It wasn’t like Alex didn’t know how deeply Michael cared about him, he had recent history as reference. 

His father had abducted and held him in a cold dark hole for two reasons, one to acquire the ship piece to complete the console for his planned act of terror at the Crashcon and the second reason, was to pin his future murder on Michael. Presenting Alex’s dead body in front of him would have broken Michael the exact same way the reverse would do to Alex, and a subdued scapegoat had fit neatly into Jesse’s narrative about the alien threat. Then there was Flint, who had taken him from Jesse to leverage Michael into working on the diffuser bomb. His ability to influence Michael’s compliance had been determined by his value to him, otherwise he would have just been extraneous baggage to their plot against his father. 

It was easier to tell himself afterwards that he had been a hostage of opportunity, Maria had been securely sheltered at a retreat, and that Michael would have done the same for anyone taken from his life, but perhaps not. 

“All right,” Alex replied softly, pushing past the tightness in his throat at hearing the confirmation of how deeply Michael still cared. “I am glad you’re here. I didn’t sleep well myself last night, not just because my leg was killing me. I guess I am still unsettled that no one had noticed that something had happened over the weekend.” Michael opened his mouth to protest, as Alex shook his head in reassurance, “It’s okay, I’m not calling anyone out here. It was just a wake-up call that I had let myself get a little isolated since-”

“Forrest,” Michael finished, before turning to face Alex fully on the couch. The thin white t-shirt slipped to the side, revealing the gentle slope of his collarbone. Alex’s eyes couldn’t help but be drawn to the hollow of Michael’s throat before jerking his gaze away after realizing that Michael was watching him just as closely with an unreadable expression. “Can I ask you a question about him?”

“Depends on the question.” 

“Well, if you answer it, I’ll answer one of yours.”

Alex considered the offer, before nodding to accept the terms. Wary or not of the subject, the opportunity to ask Michael something in turn was attractive. 

“So you seem to be actively hiding what happened with him, that you guys broke up, and um are you-” Michael broke off for a moment, before biting his lower lip, “are you hoping you get back together with him?”

“No, that’s done.” He relaxed his shoulders in relief over the question. It hadn’t been a terribly acrimonious parting, but it had been apparent that unless he changed, there was no future in their relationship. Alex was aware that he had spent most of his life trying to change one thing or another about himself, from the basics of his sexuality to his tongue-tied response to intimacy, and had been met with defeat each time. He didn’t know how to be someone who didn’t keep secrets, even about trivial matters; knowledge was a weapon in the Manes house. He also knew that his need for control and self-reliance had fed Forrest’s insecurity. “I was hiding it because- well, what was your first response when Forrest told you about our break up?”

“Well, he said he broke up with you, so my first response was that he was a moron. Then my second feeling was that I was sad, for you and for him too.”

Alex blinked in surprise, flushing slightly over Michael’s words. That wasn’t the answer he had expected at all. “Why were you sad for Forrest?”

“Greedy, that’s your second question and you haven’t fully answered my first.” Michael laughed and dodged a small pillow Alex threw at his head for the cheek. “Okay, I’ll give you a freebie. I was sad because he’s going to realize his mistake in letting you go. That’s an awful feeling I wouldn’t wish on anyone and I would know from experience.”

That sounded dangerous, to his heart, to their friendship to examine too closely. Alex had finally come to terms with the state of his relationship with Michael after that night they had shared with Maria. Of course Michael was family, of course he would always love Michael no matter what, but making each other happy outside of friendship just wasn’t in the cards for them. They both pushed each other into unhealthy behavior when romance was involved, from Michael never voicing his feelings about how Alex controlled their relationship to Alex losing some of his own self-preservation instincts and sharing Michael with someone else in the first place. 

Goddammit, he had let go of hope of things ever changing. He had gently wrapped that dream of being with Michael into a song, so those feelings could have the type of sweet permanence he had used to think was just around the corner for them. Now Michael was saying this? 

“You said we weren’t good for one another, you don’t get to say that now.” Alex reached down for his crutches to start the process of getting up. As always, the first instinct was to flee, even in his own house.

“Hey,” Michael reached out, placing his palm over Alex’s arm to still his retreat. “I’m not messing with you, okay? And Alex, we _weren’t_ good for each other _then_. I mean come on, I had just lost my mom and my brother, I was a goddamn mess. And you! You renewed your contract with the Air Force without even a word to me.” Alex broke their eye contact at that pointed reminder. “If this last year has taught me one thing, it’s that if you want to be with someone, _really be_ with them, you have to share, you gotta want to shoulder those burdens with them- and, I didn’t. Then. I wanted to keep my grief to myself.”

“You certainly seemed eager to share yourself with Maria.” Hearing just how bitter that sounded, Alex closed his eyes briefly and regrouped. “That came out wrong, what I meant was, I figured out that you didn’t want to share them with me and that’s okay, I don’t blame you, okay? I gave you plenty of reasons in the past-”

“Jesus Christ, Alex! I’m trying telling you it wasn’t just you that was at fault here, and you’re not hearing me. Why the hell do you think Maria dumped my ass?” Michael tightened his hand, before pulling away with agitation to rake his fingers through his hair. “You and I both fucked each other up back then, but it’s not like I was suddenly fixed by Maria. She tried, and I tried, but it wasn’t enough, okay? She knew there was a part of me that was always going to be yours. So yeah, I told her about my mom, I tried to share that loss with her but when it mattered, when I was learning about that year my mom spent free in Roswell, Maria wasn’t who I went to with that. That grief, that weight, I shared it with you. I dunno, when push comes to shove, it’s still you. I think it always will be.”

Alex leaned back against the couch, his crutch falling from nerveless fingers back to the floor. “Are you- are you saying you changed your mind about us?”

“I’m saying I have changed, period. I’m in a better place now than I was then, I can see things more clearly.” Michael tipped his head to the side, gesturing wildly around his hand, pointing at the piano with its closed keyboard in particular. “You can’t tell me the same isn’t true for you too. Think about how you felt when you learned what your dad was doing in the background in Roswell versus how you feel now with him dead.”

It was stupid to consider in retrospect. Jesse Manes was just one man, in a chain of command that clearly included others, but there was a relief now for Alex, knowing that he was dead. Jesse could never again play on his emotions. He could never again tease Alex with the hope that underneath those cold, cruel eyes there might be a wounded, misunderstood man who just needed to be shown compassion.

In the grand scheme of things, the threat to Michael and his family remained intact, but the relief that Alex felt in knowing he personally couldn’t be turned into a weapon against Michael by his dad emotionally manipulating him again was all encompassing.

Swallowing hard, Alex nodded slowly. “I’m ready to tell you why it didn’t work with Forrest and why I didn’t want to tell anyone about it.”

Michael took a long deep breath and then gave a tiny nod of encouragement.

“Dating in this town, it was such a big step. My friends, my brother, my team at work, they were all so supportive too. Telling people he left, that I couldn’t make it work, it was like admitting defeat, and I’m not good at that.”

That was an understatement of the year, and they both knew it.

Under Michael’s gold-flecked eyes, patient and open, Alex steadied himself to continue and admit the hardest part. “It’s like what you said, about sharing. Some of it was on the practical side, I couldn’t tell him about aliens.” Michael’s eyes filled with pain then, at that admission with his forehead wrinkling in anguish, but it was Alex’s turn to clasp onto his arm for a connection, to push away any self-blame through touch. “There’s more. I mean, top secret clearance is one thing, so I could have hid behind that when I was working late nights erasing security footage and monitoring the work Isobel did in making those guards forget about Mr. Jones. But even then, the stuff I could share with him, I didn’t. I — I couldn’t tell him when I was having a pain day, or accept his concern that I should rest. I couldn’t tell him that I wasn’t grieving my dad as a person, that I was crying at night, grieving the fact he would never be what I needed, and that I just felt so twisted up because I had wanted to believe in my dad. More than that, I had wanted to believe I could be, maybe not by him, but still I could be loved-”

“You are loved, sweetheart,” Michael insisted, closing the narrow space between them until he placed a finger over Alex’s lips to stop the flood of words.

The touch on his mouth derailed him thoroughly. Alex glanced down at Michael’s finger, feeling his thumb cup gently under his jaw to rub lightly on the five o’clock shadow that Alex sported, before looking up to meet his dark serious gaze. “Do you really think it could be different this time? That we could be different?”

“I’m willing to try if you are. But… I can tell you that I’m still going to be here, wanting to know you’re safe, no matter what, okay? If it’s too soon for you, or whatever, I was serious about either taking your couch or sleeping in my truck.”

Alex considered all of the logical arguments against this. Starting with the most recent failure in the books, his relationship and unsuccessful foray in living together with Forrest and ending with the uncomfortable knowledge that if he let Michael in this time, that if they couldn’t make this attempt at romance work after both of them trying at the same time, the coveted friendship they shared now would be gone for good. 

The wise decision would be to back away and be content with the relationship they had now.

Being smart was clearly overrated. “You’re not sleeping in your truck.” This time, as Alex pulled back from Michael’s warm touch and reached for his crutches, Michael let him go with a disappointed but understanding grimace. “You’re also not sleeping on this couch. Not when my bed is an option.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is explicit sexual content in this chapter.
> 
> There is also a discussion of 2x06 threesome between Michael and Alex, but only about the sex they shared, nothing about Maria's involvement, and mainly how they both went in separate directions romantically afterwards (Michael back to Maria, and Alex toward Forrest Long). I am leaning toward what I *think* was the original intent of the scene in writing this story, and adopting a bit of CAM’s post-mortem interview, “love gets messy when sex is brought into the equation... I’m not saying it’s healthy.” 
> 
> More comments at the end.

Alex had seen Michael in a variety of states over the years. Wary but relieved to see Alex in the shadowed doorway of a no-tell motel off the interstate over the years. Jaded by a rebuff but still welcoming outside his Airstream as he packed ahead of an Air Force-sponsored eviction. Smug at the text of ‘U Up?’ but shyly pleased when Alex drove up night after night to Sanders’ until that morning with Isobel. Terrified but insecure over his place as he patched up Alex’s stab wound from the boot maker. Later fragile and weary the next morning when the events finally caught up to everyone.

This was a new look though, as Michael hovered next to Alex’s crisply made bed with sharp hospital corners. There was hunger in his touch as he traced with a fingertip the snug hold of the comforter even as he kept blinking, heavy and slow, with disbelief. A starving man had found a gourmet all-you-can-eat buffet with no price attached. 

It was a feeling Alex shared, as he balanced on his crutches. When it looked like Michael was still hesitating on disturbing the bed, Alex reached forward to yank the covers down unceremoniously. “Hope you don’t mind the right side of the bed.”

“No, that’s fine. I know you need to be near the door.” Michael moved abruptly, with the stalemate broken, and started to pull off his t-shirt after stowing an old gym bag on the armchair in the corner of the room. His eyes flickered to the nightstand, where the black-holster of Alex’s handgun laid. “New habit?”

Alex followed his gaze to the gun, and shrugged as he sat on the end of the bed to pull off his shorts. “Old habit that’s new again.”

“Like me, then?” Michael teased gently, as he watched Alex undress, then took that example to follow as Alex slipped between the sheets in a pair of black boxer briefs.

After clicking off the light, sending the room into darkness, Alex answered quietly, “We didn’t get to do this enough together for it to be a habit. I blame myself for that.”

The four or five inches between them on the mattress could have been measured in miles, considering how it felt at the moment as they both laid perfectly still. Another stalemate, much like the perfectly made bed. Alex wanted to roll closer, to cage Michael in his arms and bury his nose in those curls, but uncertainty held him fast. Wanting to try again, wanting it to be different, what did that mean for the two of them? Falling into the physical had always been so easy.

“None of that,” Michael whispered in the space. “No more blame, okay? Like your song said, I don’t want to keep score.”

At the mention of the song, Alex’s stomach coiled even tighter in embarrassment but also the memory of his motives. His father was dead and his brother Gregory was back in his life, one door closed and one reopened. It had made sense to him that he’d needed to take that feeling of being stuck in place with Michael and use it to push himself past the stalemate with Forrest, to close another door and see what came next. What better way to do that than to gather his work colleagues together and invite them to the Wild Pony. To give his past the proper farewell, perform a swan song so to speak for his love for Michael and then the devil himself, had walked through the door. 

Feeling Michael’s gaze on him from the bar as he sang about them had only buoyed his resolve to try to move on. Unhealthy, impossible fantasies punched in and out of his thoughts. He had tried to look away from Michael, had tried to push down those wild longings he was suddenly filled with, like stepping away from the piano to take a hold of Michael in Maria’s bar, like doing more than the cover of friendship would allow them, and it had honestly been a relief to his self-control that Michael had walked out that night. As it was, just trying to live up to what he had told Forrest after his performance, that it was a long time ago, had proved hopeless. Time had certainly passed, that was undeniably true, but there was no ‘over’, and any promise of that just made him a liar.

“I’m sorry.”

Michael’s soft apology scattered the silent recriminations his mind offered. Alex turned toward him in the dark, “Sorry about what?”

“For leaving that night, it was a gorgeous performance, don’t get me wrong and I loved every word. But I had to leave- I wasn’t ready yet for what you wanted. Still trying to get my head around what had happened with Maria, I felt like a real failure of a man there, and um, it seemed like you had a very appreciative audience regardless.” 

“That song wasn’t for you-” Alex closed his eyes, feeling his old nemesis, regret, return with a surge to trip him up. “I mean, it was about you, it was about us but I wrote it for me. So I could… pay tribute to our past?”

The warm clasp of Michael’s palm on his chest startled Alex in the black. “So you’re sayin’ you’re not upset I left?”

“Of course not.” Alex covered his hand, that rested on his chest, his heart beating quicker with the touch. “That song was about telling the world, telling my dad’s world in particular, just how deeply I felt and how far I still had to go in order to love someone properly because of how I was raised.” Incredibly far as it turned out, reflecting on his breakup with Forrest, not just in trying to keep temptation at bay in the moment that night at the Wild Pony.

Michael was quiet for a while, still resting his hand on Alex. His fingers slowly tracked upward to Alex’s throat, snaking his finger around the loop of metal from Tripp’s dog tags. Alex’s breath caught as goosebumps broke out on his arms. 

“You’re too hard on yourself, Alex.” Michael shifted closer, pressing more of his body against Alex’s. The sound of the sheets rumpling nearly covered the quiet exhale Alex made as he was warmed from shoulder-to-hip by Michael. “You don’t need to wear this,” Michael tapped his finger on Tripp’s name, “to remind yourself that you’re a good person.”

“I don’t feel like a good person right now.”

“Why not?”

Alex licked his lips, his mouth going dry at just how good it felt to have Michael so close. The scent of rain filled his senses, unlocking all the reasons why this might be too soon. Was it skipping to the end, bypassing the scaffolding of their issues, to just want to roll on top of Michael and fall into the dance they both knew? “You’re here because you’re worried about what happened to me. I should be worried too, but instead, all I can think about is how much I missed you. Feels like I’m taking advantage.”

He didn’t need to see Michael’s face, he could feel Michael’s cheeks moving upward in a smile as he pressed his face into Alex’s neck. “No taking, I’m offering it, freely.” Michael nosed slowly along, tracing Alex’s jugular that beat almost noticeably against his lips before laying a soft kiss behind his ear. “We can talk more if you want, but I’m not goin’ anywhere so-”

There was more to be said between them, subjects that they had barely touched upon, but feeling Michael breathe gently against his ear and the heat of his body so close was far too much temptation. Only a thin layer of cotton separated them, as Michael turned on his side to press even closer. He could feel the damp wetness of Michael’s dick hard and ready, leaking against his briefs. 

Naive to assume that this wasn’t exactly where they were headed as soon as Michael had stated his intention to stay with Alex. 

“Definitely talking more,” Alex replied in answer, before hooking his thumbs inside the elastic of his briefs to tug them down. He found Michael’s mouth, kissing him deeply to follow up the answer. God, he had missed being able to do that. Michael met the kiss with sweet enthusiasm in return, derailing Alex’s thoughts briefly. Breaking the kiss, he finished his sentence roughly, “But later, much later.”

He had barely cast his underwear aside before Michael was moving again, wrapping his hand around Alex’s cock, blood full and hot. A long slow drag from the top of his cock down to the base, Michael’s grip just on the right side of firm, had Alex lifting his hips helplessly to chase the feeling. He let out a soft whimper of loss as Michael let go. The bed moved again, as Michael impatiently undressed completely, then the sound of a tongue laving skin filled Alex’s ear before Michael’s hand returned, saliva slick and warm around him.

Michael had never hidden his fascination with Alex’s cock in the past, how it curved to the left, the scar of circumcision. He could remember long lazy afternoons trading hand jobs in the back of that Chevy in the middle of the desert where Michael had made it a personal study to find every spot, experimenting with every twist with his right hand to make Alex come while carefully keeping his ruined left shielded. But tonight Alex’s patience had disappeared almost as soon as Michael had touched him. All he could think about was trading that firm, knowing grip for the feel of Michael’s body around him. He covered Michael’s hand with his own, and then transferred their clasp over to drop heavily on Michael’s chest.

“I want to fuck you,” Alex murmured in answer to the soft, questioning noise Michael had made at the interruption. “Will you let me?”

It was so dark, he couldn’t make out Michael’s expression, but he felt Michael swallow at the question. Alex clumsily turned his head, looking for Michael’s lips to kiss him again, working his tongue against Michael’s in a thin, transparent preview of what he wanted.

“Okay,” Michael whispered huskily, dispelling any doubt that he wasn’t eager for the same thing as Alex. “Yeah, want you inside me.”

Alex flung his arm toward his night table, nearly knocking his gun to the ground in his haste. The drawer was stocked with lube and condoms, that despite their cohabitation, he had barely put a dent on with Forrest. He brought the supplies over, dropping a couple of condoms next to Michael as he balanced on his left knee with care. 

Briefly he considered turning on the light, to allow himself to see Michael like this again. The last time in the Airstream, it had been a mix of limbs, tight confines and trying not to aggravate the bandage on his chest. There had hardly been time to appreciate getting to touch Michael again with Maria there. Lines had been silently drawn that night between all of them. Lines about what he was allowed to have with Michael as his ex-lover. He had followed the frenzy of Michael’s urging to get inside him without hesitation, pushing aside his memory of Michael wanting space from them after Noah’s funeral, and he had done it without considering what tomorrow would look like. Then there were the lines he had drawn for himself that night. He had chosen in the end to keep his face pressed against Michael’s back, and to let only Michael’s bare sun-kissed skin witness his expression as he pushed inside Michael. Faint freckles the only audience for his private worship. 

Those were the lines and boundaries drawn with someone else there, even someone he trusted like Maria.

In retrospect, it had been sex in the moment, sex fueled out of the crash of adrenaline. Unspoken had been the implication that it would be just that one last time. Alex had been so concerned with keeping his heart in check, that nothing past the physical really registered that night. This was different, he reminded himself, focusing on the present as he uncapped the lube and tried to tear open the condom. They had found their way back to each other finally. Then the reminder of why Michael was there surfaced stubbornly in his head. Those missing hours. Brought back together because of yet another near-death experience for Alex. Fuck. 

Were they falling into the same trap as before, caving to the physical because it was easy?

Sensing that something was wrong, Michael reached out and clicked on the light. He shifted, finding Alex’s trembling fingers with his own. Unraveling his grip on the condom, Michael finished opening it for Alex. “Hey, I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart.”

Alex muffled a self-conscious laugh, feeling ridiculous but exposed. “Sorry, my brain, it got stuck for a minute.”

“Yeah? Mine too,” Michael responded reassuringly. He leaned in to kiss Alex again, softly brushing his lips against his, before pressing their foreheads together. The condom was set aside as Michael ran his palms up and down Alex’s back soothingly. “Was thinkin’ we’ve only done this once before since you found out what I am.”

That. That was true, Alex realized slowly. So many labels had cycled through his mind since he first fell in love with Michael, from the smart loner kid, to his first crush, then later first love. Sometime in the last ten years Alex had wondered if he should switch that title to only love, but even after he knew the truth, he’d never really thought of Michael as alien in a personal way. He turned his face into Michael’s, breathing gently against his mouth before kissing him deeply, attempting in his own small way to show his full embrace of Michael’s being.

Michael broke the kiss, his voice rough, “Oh, guess that wasn’t an issue for you?”

“Never. You’ve always been you,” Alex replied inelegantly. Something about his words loosened Michael’s shoulders as he absorbed it. Feeling the mood change and return, Alex gently pressed Michael back against the bed. Flat on his back, Michael obediently held his legs parted wide for Alex. And this time, his hands were rocky-steady sure as he slicked his fingers with lube and slid down to find Michael’s hole. “Alien, human, all I know is you’re — you’re you.”

In the yellow glow of the lamp light Michael watched him, smiling at the unpolished but sincere words. His eyes were half-lidded, dark with an old hunger banked within but long untended. As Alex’s finger slowly pressed inside, Michael made a whining noise in the back of his throat, half entreaty and half impatience, lifting his chin for a kiss. 

“Good?”

“Yeah, yeah, just. Gimme a minute,” Michael panted, as Alex braced himself with one arm to hover over him. “Been a while.”

“Yeah?” Alex asked, trying to bank his curiosity. After Michael’s breakup with Maria, he had definitely watched with a tight chest as Michael left Planet 7 in the company of another man more than once. At that point it had become second nature to tell himself he had long ago lost the right to pay attention to the palpitations of envy that accompanied seeing Michael with someone else.

Michael hummed softly in answer, shivering as Alex bit gently on his collarbone, tilting to allow access to his throat. “Yeah.” He didn’t elaborate further, just sent Alex another heavy lidded look, curling his mouth coyly. “Can’t remember the last time I did this, you make me forget everything, everyone but you.” 

They both lasted seconds before Alex broke, giggling at Michael helplessly. Such cheek deserved a proper reproving response. He pressed a second finger inside Michael, quick and deliberate in revenge, as they both snickered. Michael half-moaned and half-laughed as Alex curled his free hand around the curve of his hip to ease him lower and wider on the bed. “What a cheesy line-”

“You used to love my cheesy lines-”

“Still do,” Alex admitted, kissing him again, feeling how his own mouth ached in a smile. Michael’s eyes were still bright with amusement as Alex stared down at him, feeling the catch again in his throat of just how much he loved this man. Almost without him noticing, Michael had eased the nerves of past regret between them, letting only the truth of the moment shine through. 

Was this wholeness, the click and lock of a piece of his heart returning to him at long last? He wanted to say something, to let Michael know just how happy he was. That whatever dark plot that might be afoot, he was grateful to have Michael back as a result of it. It was payment he would gladly make to the ferryman of strife, those two lost days. Words of course, failed him as they always did. What he had was this, showing Michael physically everything he still struggled to say verbally. 

Two fingers spread into three, Michael kept watching him, shifting and grinding down against Alex’s hand as Alex balanced with care. The discarded condom, skipped away from his grasp for a moment, before he was able to grasp it firmly to roll down his cock. Both of them, with Michael carefully careening his neck down, watched as Alex slicked the condom with a fresh swipe of lube and pressed his cock against him. 

Steadying his nerves, Alex moved his free hand to Michael’s hip again, clutching the perfect curve of muscle and bone under his fingertips and moved steadily forward. Heat enveloped him first, that five degree alien difference, as the vice grip of Michael clung stubbornly around his cock, before Michael’s eyelashes fluttered in surrender and made a visible effort to relax. Maxium entropy, the heat death of the universe, the real death of any chance of retreat for his heart. Slowly he kept pressing inside, as Michael let out soft, choked breaths as he adjusted around Alex.

“Fuck,” Michael swore softly.

“Too much?” Alex watched his face with concern even as he fought to keep his own breathing steady. God, he had missed this, missed seeing how open Michael’s face was when he was getting fucked. The way that every mask, every defense Michael had, would disappear in the moment that Alex entered him. He watched as Michael’s mouth dropped open, lush and full as he worked to take Alex inside. 

“Fishin’ for an ego boost?”

Alex rolled his eyes at the impertinence, and gave a small sharp hip thrust forward in response, sinking deeper. He tipped his head down, staring at where he disappeared inside Michael, slow, so slowly. Michael’s eyes were watching him, overly bright when Alex lifted his head upward. With an arm wrapped around Alex's neck, Michael pulled him down to kiss, biting at his lips as Alex rocked his hips into him again.

Their teeth clacked together once as they kissed. Alex ignored the sharp sting, opening his mouth to deepen the kiss before moving his hands down to clutch tightly on Michael’s hips. He could already feel the build up of his orgasm as he picked up the pace, chasing his pleasure inside Michael.

“Fuck, fuck, that’s, yeah,” Michael chanted, tipping his head back on the pillow and spreading his legs wide around Alex. “Fuck me-”

“You like it?”

“Yeah, yeah, harder-”

“Tell me,” Alex urged, biting his lower lip as he felt himself shift deeper inside as Michael tugged him closer. Canting his hips, he moved until a loud cry erupted from Michael, letting Alex know he had found Michael’s prostate. Then it was a blur after that, a mix of observations both foolish and heartbreaking, from feeling the sweat trickling down his spine, to having his thighs tremble with effort, to worrying about losing the support of his left leg in balance, to looking down and seeing Michael’s curls drop in front of his eye while realizing he couldn’t brush them away without falling over.

With two good legs he wouldn’t have worried. 

“It’s good, so good-” Michael dug his fingertips into Alex’s back for grip and leverage, his breath uneven and ragged. Alex curled toward him, pursuing his mouth for another kiss, as he felt Michael’s cock paint his stomach with pre-cum. Both of them moving together in a careful push-and-withdrawal, with Michael tight and hot around his cock.

Their foreheads pressed together, Alex groaned as he fucked harder into him under Michael’s encouragement. In his ear he could hear Michael making soft, punched out huffs of air. That was absolutely the sound of Michael getting close, that he was on the verge of coming and it spurred Alex to keep going, to keep driving forward.

As Alex reached between them to wrap his hand around Michael’s cock, his right thigh seized in pain suddenly, giving out under his attempts to balance. The strain of his weekend neglect during those dark, amnesic hours were behind the weakness and finally it took its revenge on him. His hand convulsed, too tight, as he lost his balance with his right thigh slipping backward. He dragged a yelp from Michael with his carelessness. Teetering precariously, he held his hips flush against Michael, but the rhythm and strength were gone.

“Fuck!” It was not an exclamation of pleasure this time as humiliated tears unexpectedly burned in Alex’s eyes. Before he could do more than loosen his grip with an apologetic noise, he felt the unseen power surround him and support his right side smoothly. 

“I gotcha sweetheart,” Michael covered Alex’s hand with his, encouraging him to keep stroking. That steady touch interrupted Alex’s spiral of embarrassment. “Keep goin’, I want it, want you-”

Those whiskey-dark eyes stayed on Alex, offering everything up to him, if Alex wanted to take it. And he did. God, he wanted it all. Secure with Michael’s telekinesis shoring up his right side, Alex thrust deeply into him. In return, Michael ground his hips up into Alex’s cock, hungry as ever for being fucked. Whatever momentum that had been lost, they found after a moment of renewal. Together, hand over hand, he stroked Michael’s cock until he came with a long groan, spilling over their joined fingers. 

Feeling Michael come undone under him, Alex kept moving, fast and rough now as he turned his focus on his own pleasure. Taking what Michael gave him. He turned his mouth to Michael’s throat, blood thrumming near to the surface, as he was torn in two different directions. Wanting to savor how tight Michael was, but knowing nothing this good could ever last forever.

His fingers wet with come, Alex moved his hand away to find a hold again on Michael’s hips. In the meantime, spent from his own orgasm, Michael’s arms fell away to the bed, his curls splayed over the pillow, the picture of ruined splendor. Even as he shivered, oversensitive and exhausted, Michael lifted his hips into Alex again, granting permission for more.

The bedsheets had long since pulled off the edge of the mattress corner. The heavy headboard rocked with Alex, the beat of his heart at allegro, the rap of the bed against the wall at andante. It always happened like this with Michael. 

Control was just an illusion. 

Alex remembered those summer conversations, under the night’s sky when they were kids, still new in their feelings. Michael had patiently educated him as he pointed out the stars. The state of atoms, the strength of an ionic bond within the nucleus, that love was like that. It was the energy of the universe, fermions and the spin of particles, the quantum of how much of him was tied up in this man. When Alex finally came, riding out his own orgasm through the wash of a black universe on his closed eyelids, he was reminded of that truth. 

“Michael,” he gasped, his voice half strangled, caught up in how good it all felt. The comforting hold of Michael’s TK eased away, letting Alex drop heavily into Michael’s waiting arms, their skin wet and sticky. 

After a few minutes cresting the high from the endorphins, Alex reached down between them to grip the condom to withdraw and dispose of in the trash bin next to the bed. The mess between them was starting to cool, and with the wrecked sheets, he should probably try to get his one working foot back online to move toward clean up.

Michael’s arms tightened around him as he made a small aborted motion to roll away from him. “Not yet.” 

“Come on, we’re going to end up stuck together,” Alex ran his fingertip down Michael’s chest, stroking the soft chest hair that spread enticingly down toward his groin. Michael made a soft noise of dissent for sliding his palms, fingers stretched wide, down Alex’s back. 

“I don’t know if you noticed, but you always want to move away from me after sex.” Michael commented softly, without judgment. “Guess that’s the legacy of stealin’ time together, the muscle memory of it.” 

Oh. Alex hadn’t really thought about it, but Michael might have a point. Outside of that morning when Isobel had shown up, he had always been the first to clean up, the first to re-dress, the first to say goodbye when it came to sex and that had been true even with Forrest. Half of the reason Forrest had agreed to move in had centered over the complaint of Alex always doing his ‘walk of shame’ back to his house with familiar safe walls before the bedsheets had even cooled. 

“I get it though,” Michael continued, his hands tracing gentle slowing patterns over the peaks on Alex’s backbone. “Kinda got a similar habit. I think if I let go first, it won’t hurt as bad when someone leaves me, but I gotta say I’m tired of letting go. Especially tired of letting you go.”

“Then don’t. Don’t let go of me,” Alex closed his eyes enjoying Michael’s loving touch and actively pushed down the old fear. Michael’s finger took on a more purposeful path, no longer making soothing random nonsense patterns, but letters. Oh. He was tracing out the word ‘love’ on Alex’s back and then a heart. His throat thick with emotion, he managed to choke out, “Me too,” to Michael.

That feeling of being unsafe, of needing to love in short, quick bites before retreating only half sated, had moved into his head one late afternoon with the swing of a shed door and the silhouette of his father in red stained shadows, but he didn’t have to live there with it as his unwanted mental roommate anymore.

*** 

At five thirty precisely Alex’s alarm went off, letting the opening riff of _“Centuries”_ fill the air from his phone. Michael grumbled in his ear, as the chorus of ‘ _you will remember me, remember me for centuries_ ’ filled the air. He was still draped over Alex like an alien-hot blanket. After a long cuddle the night before, Michael had grudgingly let Alex go from his grasp, long enough to use his TK to strip the bed and help clean up from their activities.

Alex reached for his phone, his fingers brushing past the serious weight of the holstered gun on his night stand, to silence the alarm. 

“Five more minutes,” Michael said into his shoulder, but his words were closer to ‘ff mo-in-its.’

After a second of debate, Alex opened up his phone to his email, and logged into his Air Force schedule and put in for another full eight hour leave request to match the similar one from Monday. He cc’d his next in the line of command along with the duty sergeant before returning the phone to its charging station. Michael shifted onto his back, as Alex turned back toward him to drape his thigh over him and snuggle closer.

“Took a sick day today, so… you can have more than five minutes.”

Michael cracked an eyelid open, wary at his good fortune but pleased nonetheless. “Yeah? You feeling okay?”

“Mmhmm. Slept great.” Alex placed a light kiss on his chest before resettling his head on his alien pillow. “We should probably talk some more, about us, when you’re ready to get up.”

A slight grumble came from Michael in agreement, as he shifted under Alex’s questing hand on his stomach. “‘Kay talk all you want, s’fine with me. I still get to ask another question of you since you cheated and asked me two.”

Alex snaked his hand up to pinch Michael’s nipple lightly in response, earning a squirming giggle from Michael. “I did not cheat, but yeah, you can ask me whatever you want.”

Though he had turned off the alarm and had nowhere else to go that morning, Alex’s military trained body was awake for the day. He should be using this time to examine more of his security footage to see if he could pinpoint when the tainted beer had been switched, but the lazy feel of his body well-used from sex had Alex content to drift in a warm lethargy next to Michael. Listening to Michael’s breathing, easy and even, made for an unrushed soundtrack. A long enough silence went by that Alex had figured he had fallen back asleep but when Alex tipped his head back to check, he found Michael watching him with dark, serious eyes. 

“Anythin’? From you?” Michael asked, his mouth slightly twisted in disbelief before lifting his head from the pillow to look around the room in exaggeration. “Alex Manes really said he’ll talk about anything, I must be still dreamin’-”

This time instead of pinching him, Alex turned his lips towards all of that golden skin and bit down on the swell of muscle on Michael’s chest. Immediately Michael’s hands came up to cup the back of his head, holding his mouth and teeth against him until Alex moved across the furred expanse of skin until he could suck Michael’s nipple between his lips. 

Michael shivered in pleasure under Alex’s mouth, while Alex worried and gently worked his lips over Michael, feeling blood firm and pebble against his tongue. A new wash of goosebumps spread across sun-bronzed skin, as Michael gasped with wonder, “Fuck, that mouth of yours-”

He let go with a suckling sound before blowing lightly against the wet skin. Alex lifted his eyebrow, smugly arched, “Sorry, you were saying something?”

“Was that a punishment or reward?”

“Let’s call it a reward for me.” Alex laid another soft kiss against the reddening skin, rubbing the stubble on his chin against Michael’s chest before pulling back to meet his gaze, dilated with pleasure. “You’re right, I’m not good at talking, not about my feelings or what I’m thinking but… maybe if you let me do that, touch you, it could help.”

“Always, that’s my kind of positive reinforcement.” Michael laid a hand under his jaw, cupping his face sweetly, “I know I’ve messed up before, with you, and I really want to get it right this time. Kinda means I need to know what you’re thinkin’, what you’re feelin’, and-” he paused, his thumb dragging upward to press against Alex’s lower lip. His eyes focused closely on Alex as Alex parted his lips to kiss the whorls of Michael’s finger. “Isobel says I’m always insistin’ on being an outsider, kept her and Max at arm’s-length growin’ up, and well you say you’re not good at talkin’, turns out I’m not good at believin’ that someone really cares about me.”

Alex thought about that conversation he had had with Maria, when she had asked him why he had ended up leaving Roswell after high school. When the past was viewed with sepia-colored glasses, it was easy to say if only Michael had just kept kissing him like that young, clueless kid in the museum, he might have chosen a different path than the Air Force. But that was looking at the past with two hands cupped around his eyes like blinders, blocking out the reality of his father’s dead-serious expectations of joining the military, emphasis on ‘dead’. It was also blocking out the truth, that he hadn’t had enough money saved to live on his own at 18, it was narrowing the focus in this internal kaleidoscope until all he could see was some sweet mirage of love and fairy tales cruelly denied to him by a kid with a maimed hand and limited means of his own.

Truth was a little murkier, a little less black and white. Alex might not have seen it right away at 17, but he was well experienced with Michael’s fear of abandonment at 29, scorching bridges, roads, and footpaths in his wake. Alex was also aware just how well his own trauma fed into Michael’s, propelling them both away from each other like north on north magnetic poles.

Slowly Alex released Michael’s finger from his mouth, the pop of suction loud against the quiet confessional atmosphere that had fallen in the pre-dawn hours. “Ask me anything, I’m not going anywhere.”

An extended hand, an offering of closing the distance between what was heard and what was thought to be heard and Michael stared back at him, his face a mix of aroused from his actions but hopeful at Alex’s promise. “Even the hard questions?”

“Especially the hard ones.”

And so they did. 

In an almost perfect symmetry with the sun, the curtains in the bedroom shifted with their conversation. From the solid, impenetrable backdrop of ignorance in their topics, like just why did Alex wear his great-uncle's dog tags (‘It’s a reminder about complacency, he was shot dead as an old man while Nora stayed captured’), to Michael voicing his relief that Alex had sent Flint away (‘He’s your brother, I know, but he nearly killed Maria, and he never wavered once from believing I was the enemy’) and then finally as they moved into the lighter subjects, the room warm and gold-tinted with the curtains translucent from the mid-morning sun, all the heavy subjects open between them. 

Michael kept his hands on Alex through the careful disclosures, running fingertips along Alex’s throat as if to coax the words out by hand as Alex struggled to describe how his childhood had changed him as an adult now. He was forever pulled between needing his gun close at hand to ward off the memory of his father’s heavy footsteps up the stairs to knowing that if it was too close in those dark moments- well. 

“I didn’t realize it until after he was dead, but I was actively fighting a war last year. My body kept telling me that I needed to be careful, that I shouldn’t let him near because it wasn’t safe, but my eyes kept seeing a fragile old man, drunk and bitter. Then my stupid brain was trying its best to logic my way through it, it was all for nothing. He died still hating me, still manipulating me, but at least it was over. God the fucking relief of that. I think I slept for two days afterwards.”

“Your brain wasn’t stupid, sweetheart,” Michael said, kissing Alex’s palm like a benediction. 

Well. Did he dare dive into that opening now, with their time back together numbering in just hours, was that a strong enough stitch to keep them together and weather talking about that last fight? He had to admit to himself that he had never known anything other than full steam ahead with Michael, unfamiliar with half measures since that afternoon where he’d lost his virginity just hours after kissing for the first time. 

“I seem to recall you saying something differently before.” 

There it was, a fuse lit with Alex’s careful words. It was up to Michael to decide if this ended up as a live ordinance shell or a dud. 

“I remember,” Michael replied, just as careful as Alex had been, still holding onto his hand. “I guess we both know how to push each other’s buttons.”

“Yes, and you were right, about what you said about trusting my dad. I think I made it ten feet from your bunker before it all went black and woke up zip-tied in his basement.”

Shifting closer, Michael moved to touch his forehead then, those clever mechanic’s hands feeling along Alex’s hairline until he found the slight indent of the scar from that attack. He leaned in to kiss the scar. “I don’t feel any victory over that, Alex. And it’s not like I had any clinical distance myself about your dad.” Michael kissed the scar again, half buried in his hair, then kissed the other scar on his forehead, the remnant of a plate thrown at him during his first Christmas home from Iraq, dispelling any myth that Alex had had about wearing a uniform changing his father’s feelings about him. “And I selfishly want you to keep believin’ in people, believing that people can change. I don’t want to let you down again.”

That fragile hope and promise in Michael’s voice about second chances cut into Alex cleanly like a shard of glass hidden in the grass. There was still a root, branching out hungry for reassurance in Michael that fed back to feeling unworthy. Alex wasn’t such an egotist to believe that he was the only one who fed that feeling, that likely Max, Isobel, Michael’s past history in foster care, and even the most recent breakup with Maria were all probably contributing in some way to giving that root rich fertile ground to sink into and blossom.

“Let _me_ down? I think you have it the other way around,” Alex observed gently, soaking up the physical contact as he shifted to tuck his head into the hollow of Michael’s throat. They should have done this before. It was silly to realize that clothing and sitting in separate chairs built impenetrable walls between them when it came to talking things out, but he couldn’t deny that the words came easier to them both, baring their souls with their naked skin. “I wasn’t doing a good job at hearing you when you told me what you needed last year, I kept thinking about the things I would need in the same scenario.”

“Guess it goes back to score keepin’. I think though, we’re both getting better at um, not projecting our worst fears at each other? ‘Cause I know you don’t want to hurt me, and I hope you know, that I don’t want to hurt you either.”

“I do know that,” Alex assured him quickly. Draping his right leg over Michael to tuck himself more securely against him, his body following up on his words as he held onto him. No room for insecurity or rejection to worm its way between their entangled bodies. Alex felt Michael’s hand reach down to hold and stroke gentle fingertips over the scarred end of his leg, the blunt disappearing drop after his knee. Those clever hands that were used to repair and refinish broken objects, still only touched Alex like he was perfect and whole. 

No one else managed that with Alex but Michael. 

Even with Forrest, who did try to project positive indifference toward Alex’s leg, there was a lingering thought that he couldn’t shake that Forrest was trying too hard to be ‘cool’ with Alex’s amputation. As he sunk into Michael’s warm and loving hold, his thoughts a mix of low-grade arousal and lazy distant ideas about breakfast together, it took him a moment to realize that Michael was deep in his own thoughts and on a separate track from Alex’s, judging by how his lower lip was bitten and red. “What is it?”

“What I said about projecting worst fears, um so you told me why you broke up with Forrest-” Michael started, before chewing on his lips again as he visibly struggled with the topic. Alex shifted to prop his head up in mild alarm at the display. “Fuck, there’s no way to ask this without sounding like an asshole, but we never talked about that night with Maria and I wondered if there was connection there. To you dating Forrest.” Michael kept his hand wrapped firmly around Alex’s leg, anchoring him in place. “I mean, you did call that night a level of hell?”

“I was mostly joking, but, that- it was… It was- I don’t really know how to say this without sounding like an asshole too.”

Michael smiled faintly, “Then you can keep me company.”

“And such good-looking company that is,” Alex smiled, mirroring that small hint of humor. 

Michael pinked a little at the compliment, then paused, making some mental decision. With a graceful twist, part muscle and part telekinesis he shifted them, flipping Alex onto his back. He kept his grip on Alex’s right thigh, moving his upper body down to lay his head down between Alex’s legs, his thigh now Michael’s makeshift pillow. With a quirk of his eyebrow, he looked back up at Alex, “Does this help with the words? Positive reinforcement…” Michael tipped upward to press his kiss-swollen mouth on Alex’s stomach, hovering a breath away from tracing the trail of dark hair downward.

“Oh god,” Alex laughed but threaded his fingers through Michael’s hair in answer, holding him in place. “All right, I can tell you, that there’s no right answer here about that night.”

“No? Kinda feels like it’s a yes or no question, not a right or wrong one.” Michael replied. “Just, was that night with Maria the reason why you wanted to start dating Forrest?”

“The short answer is yes, but the long answer is ‘no’.”

Michael bit lightly at his abdomen in response to that non-answer, startling Alex into a laugh again. 

“All right, if I answer this, I want you to answer something equally hard for me,” he wound a curl around his finger thoughtfully, “how do things really stand with Maria? You’ve been very weird after your break up and- are we going to be okay?”

Turning into the touch, Michael closed his eyes again and then started to mouth lightly on Alex’s skin. Alex tightened his grip on Michael’s curls to refocus his attention, which coaxed an aroused gasp from his lips. 

“I’ll go first, if you keep, fuck, keep doin’ that,” Michael offered, his pupils nearly swallowing the traces of whiskey gold. “You told me once, you couldn’t be my medicine. You didn’t want to be. And I… “ He pressed upward into Alex's hand, and wrapped his leg over Alex’s to grind lightly against him. “You’ve never needed me, Alex, and I didn’t know what to do with that. In my head, it was easy for you to come and go, and that I didn’t go with you when you left, cause like, what did I offer you that you couldn’t find somewhere else? So it was hard, when you came home, to trust that I had an appeal to you? I really only understood people sticking around because I was useful to ‘em. Maria needed me.”

“And then she didn’t?”

“Nah, then she needed a friend more than a boyfriend. Her abilities, my feelings about it, that was one impasse she wasn’t willing to budge, but like,” Michael paused, pressing a kiss on Alex’s hip bone. “You were the other side of it, even if she didn’t want to say it. I was kinda mad at her for a bit, cause she said something about being worried that maybe somebody might make me happier than her but then I realized that was about _her_ , not about me. Afterwards, I’ve never been friends with an ex before, so that’s why it was weird.”

“Not true, we were friends,” Alex protested.

“Oh honey, our relationship has never fit in any neat box like ‘friends’, even when we were apart and you know that.” Michael dragged the rough growth of his fledgling beard over Alex’s skin, watching with interest at the skin flushed red from the friction for a moment. “Back to my question, now.”

Alex combed his fingers through Michael’s curls slowly, sweat and the natural oils had darkened the sun bleached strands into a rich brown. “I’ve been accused of not really listening in the past,” he began, smiling a little at the muffled snort of amusement from Michael. “Sometimes I find myself, like internalizing everything? Making it mine so I can control it? So when you told me that we weren’t good for each other, I might have thought I just needed to wait you out?”

He opened his mouth to protest only to have Alex press his thumb against his lips. 

“You said it went both ways, but all I heard was how I hadn’t shown up for you. So yeah, I put a lot of energy into trying to be there, even did my best to match-make for you with Maria, because I thought if I just waited it out, you’d change your mind about us.” Alex paused, thinking about that morning again outside of the Airstream. “Have you ever thought you knew what you were doing but then realized you’ve got no clue? That was me after that night with Maria. So in some ways that’s what led me toward Forrest. I had to let you go, and the only way for me to do that was um, to move on.” 

Alex lifted his hand away from Michael, stretching his fingers out slowly and turning it from side to side with a deliberate examination. Michael followed his gaze with wet looking eyes as Alex continued softly, “My hands, like I’ve done terrible things with them in war, behind a computer screen with drones, hacking other governments but when you’re with me, and I can touch you, hold onto you, none of that matters? That’s what you offer to me, that’s what I carried with me when I wasn’t here with you. And when you were here but not mine to touch, I had to see if it was just you, or if I could find that feeling with someone else. That’s the short answer of yes, that night with Maria and you, had something to do with it.”

Michael watched, his mouth still pressed gently against the soft skin of Alex’s stomach before asking with a rough voice, “And the long answer of no?”

“The longer answer of no starts with because I try not to be a hypocrite and I realized I had been using you as my own medicine here in Roswell, especially when I first got back here. You remember. So um, yeah it was important to me, regardless of who you were with, that I figured out who I was.” He trailed his thumb down Michael’s face, before resting it under his jaw to cup tenderly hoping to chase that uncertain expression away, “I dove back into music, I figured out that the voice in my head, telling me that I was wrong to act on my desires with men, that um, some of it came from inside me, and not just my dad. I had to find that peace — of holding my boyfriend’s hand walking down the street versus um, kissing at a redneck bar. And five and a half months later with Forrest, I mean, it was good, he was good, patient with my bullshit, but in the end, it just drove home that I had carved out this space inside of me for you and I didn’t want anyone else to fill it.”

That was easily the most Alex had ever said about how he felt about himself to Michael. The only other audience had been inside of a mandatory therapy meeting. He felt lighter with the words out in the open now, old wounds cleaned and bandaged between them during this late morning confessional. 

The sun through the thin blinds cast a gilded sheen on Michael’s body, and the proximity of Michael’s skillful mouth so close to Alex’s cock was getting harder to ignore as Michael laved kisses on his stomach and the bone cut slope of his hips. The weight of the past on one side of the see-saw, with love on the other, and together Alex could feel the lift of possibility between them bringing them into balance. Love tipping them higher.

“We’re going to be so good together, this time, because I feel the same way, about how you fit with me,” Michael finally answered, seeming to mirror Alex’s thoughts aloud. He laid the side of his face on Alex with a hopeful promise, but his eyes darkened after a moment as a new thought or old pain surfaced, “But I admit, I had… I had wondered lately over these last couple of months, about Forrest and you, what made him special, ‘cause of how public you were with him. Like that was something we never had together in the past. So my worst feelings projected, was thinking you didn’t feel comfortable doing that with me, because of who I was.”

“I can’t change how it was before, but well, if you’re hungry now, there’s no food in this house currently. We can do this differently, together.” Alex gasped as Michael turned his mouth to rasp his teeth against Alex’s hip before licking again in apology. He shifted again, his cock fully hard now, but kept his voice steady, “I’d love to take you out for breakfast, anywhere you want. Will even hold your hand too, maybe play um, footsie under the table?”

“I am hungry, for two things.” Michael smirked, before reaching up to wrap his hand around Alex’s cock, “And I’m open to satisfying both appetites now.”

That was the last coherent word for a while between them, but later they did end up in a booth at the Crashdown for churro pancakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am neither a yay or nay person on 2x06 but one of my first thoughts after the episode aired was, Malex has to talk about it when they get back together in canon (and I hoped they would) so I wanted to write the interpretation of the episode in such a way that they could still have a relationship and build from it. So that’s how I interpret it.


	4. Chapter 4

In just a week, Alex’s life went from something he was moving through in a fugue most days, one foot in front of the other, with a wary eye split between his security system and the rearview mirror of his SUV, to wanting his dreams to pass as quickly as possible, so he could open his eyes to see Michael next to him. The work days in particular dragged with a slow torturous monotony until he could find himself back at his house, with Michael again, elbowing each other in the kitchen preparing dinner or getting teased about the hospital corners in the perfectly made bed.

It’s wasn’t that Alex had forgotten exactly, that a threat against him had made all this possible, but the way Michael had made himself at home, seamlessly slotting into place with cowboy boots at the front door and extra flannel shirts in the laundry, made it hard for Alex to maintain any sense of extended hypervigilance. That’s what happiness did he mused, smoothing the rough edges of his old companion of anxiety until it rolled over him harmoniously without leaving the usual rending lacerations.

Alex took another look at his reflection in the mirror at the base gym and smoothed down an invisible wrinkle in his long-sleeved black shirt. His uniform hung neatly on the hanger behind him. Since Michael had moved in, Alex had noticed that his usual welcoming smile was always slightly smaller and tighter when he saw the uniform on him. 

_The uniform, I just never get used to it._ Honestly, even though it had been a long part of Alex’s life, he understood the disconnect that Michael had with the camouflage gear or heavy wool service jacket. To Alex the uniform meant stability and security, but it also meant falling in line with other Manes men, who with one lone exception, were not good men. To Michael, the uniform seemed to be a reminder of their past separations and too close to an association with the men who had found, imprisoned and later tortured the survivors of his people after June 1947.

It was not a big deal for Alex to change into civilian wear at the base once his day of duties ended, and it was worth it to see that tiny worry line vanish from Michael’s face. He had found that early mornings, Michael typically left for the garage to work while Alex was still drinking coffee in his boxers. Maybe it wasn’t the healthiest cosplay to engage in, keeping the subject of the Air Force as the large, invisible elephant in the room, but Alex didn’t really care if kept Michael smiling openly at him.

Tonight he had a purpose in redressing in civilian clothes, he was meeting Michael at the Crashdown for a date, to celebrate both a week back together and a week with no further signs of someone tampering with Alex’s home or life. 

Satisfied that he looked as good as he could with a slightly longer than regulation haircut, Alex gathered his belongings and checked out of the base for the day. He tapped his steering wheel in time with the beat of an old Green Day song as he drove toward Roswell proper, his stomach jumping with anticipation of having this date but even in the midst of his nerves, his mind was still quietly noting the make and model of the cars behind him.

An exhaustive search of the recorded footage from his indoor and outdoor security cameras had revealed only another tiny blip of a blank timestamp dating sometime after his last delivery of groceries the Thursday prior to that lost weekend. Alex had guessed that was when the drugged beer was introduced to his refrigerator. Somehow the network Wi-Fi connection to the cameras had been hacked, likely by a sophisticated cloning malware bug. He had had a moment of professional embarrassment and consternation, that he had relied on such a sloppy setup in his own house just because he hadn’t wanted to drill into the walls to hard-wire his cameras into a closed-circuit panel.

Having a telekinetic boyfriend/bodyguard living in his house did at least make remedying that oversight easier, fishing wires through the ceiling had never been so easy.

As he parked in the side lot for the Crashdown, Alex noticed that Michael’s truck was nowhere to be seen, despite the fact that Alex was at least ten minutes late due to two chatty MPs who were slow in opening the gate to exit the base. After another check of his hair in the rearview mirror, Alex hurried inside the cozy diner. Rosa was likely working, considering the soundtrack was Counting Crows at the moment, and with that in mind, Alex headed to the corner booth that allowed him a clear view of both the front door, to see Michael’s arrival, and the kitchen, to warn of Rosa’s.

Neither Alex nor Michael had made an open announcement about their relationship, but word had instantly traveled through their mutual friends after that first breakfast. To be fair showing up on a Wednesday morning, normally a work day, beaming at each other with the clear glow of sex still on their skin with Rosa Ortecho working the cash register meant the news went to Maria before they had reached their cars to leave. From there, Maria had texted Isobel. Michael had later related that when he had finally made it to work that afternoon, Isobel and Sanders had both been waiting for him for interrogation.

“Boyfriend running late?” Arturo greeted as he laid out two sets of silverware and started pouring ice water for his table. 

Alex was well aware that through the months of dating Forrest, Arturo had never referred to him as Alex’s boyfriend and that his cool politeness toward a member of the Long family wasn’t related to the past troubles with the cousin Wyatt. It was unmistakably clear that Arturo had a soft spot for Michael in particular, something Michael had explained away with a blush as related to the help given to repair Arturo’s oven exhaust system on the eve of a surprise safety inspection.

Before he could reply, Rosa came flying out of the back of the restaurant, snatching the water pitcher from her father, “Papi! I’ve got this, go start his milkshake…” Then she turned toward Alex with a wide smile showing too many teeth around her bright red lipstick, as she fished out a pair of red heart shaped candles to set on the table-top from her apron pockets. “So tonight’s specials are the Planetary Platter, meant to be shared, and our dessert is the ‘Take Me To Your Madeira Cake’. It’s also Michael’s favorite.”

“Hi Rosa,” Alex greeted, rolling his eyes at her performance. “Let’s wait until he gets here, but really, the candles aren’t necessary.”

“Please. Your game needs all the help it can get.” Rosa made a gesture at his clothing with a playfully critical wince. “Some more jewelry and eyeliner would help that sad outfit.”

“I’m not 17 anymore.”

“You’re also not yet 30, so don’t dress like you’re shopping for annuity investment.” Alex stared at her for a moment, shocked by her spouting of financial terms, causing her to blush slightly under the scrutiny in return. Rosa laid down a pair of straws with grave attention, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, “I’m auditing some econ classes at the community college.”

“That’s amazing!” Alex cheered, as Arturo approached the table with a plate of fries and a milkshake. 

“It was your Michael’s idea, he arranged it. I think he fixed one of the professor’s cars?” Arturo informed, placing a proud arm around Rosa, who made a face at the fuss but smiled brightly. “Audit is a good first step. Then maybe next term, my little mouse will be enrolled in college!”

“It’s too soon for that, I just started! Don’t get ahead of yourself-”

He watched as Rosa pushed her father back toward the kitchen, as they teased and laughed at each other. A quick glance at his watch, as he dipped a fry into his shake, showed that Michael was now closer to over a half hour, almost forty-five minutes late. Alex frowned, pulling up his phone to check for a missed call. 

Nothing. He carefully texted Michael, looking for the right balance of concern but also not wanting to seem pushy. _“Hey, I’m already inside. Hurry before I eat your share of the fries.”_

As the time kept passing without any sign of Michael, the plate of fries grew cold and the red festive candles burnt down into puddles of flat wax. Unable to fully believe it, he had to consider the fact that Michael had forgotten him. His ego a little wounded, Alex waited until Rosa and Arturo were both busy with customers before escaping the table with enough cash to more than cover his untouched food and half-consumed milkshake. He drove home lost in thought, hands tight and still on the steering wheel with the radio turned off as he worked to push away any feelings of disappointment.

It was too early to interpret one missed date as a sign of the apocalypse. 

Thankfully there wasn’t much traffic as Alex made the familiar turns completely checked out of what he was doing. A fully armored tank could have followed him home on his bumper and Alex would have made no notice of it. But as he pulled into the driveway, the concern faded into relief when he found Michael’s truck was parked in its now familiar place on the street.

“He probably forgot,” Alex said out loud as he parked, gathering his uniform from the back of his SUV. He let the fact his text message had stayed unopened as merely evidence that Michael had probably fallen into some documentary on television, completely absorbed.

The lights on the security system were off. 

Abruptly every sleeping paranoid reflex from before Michael had moved in re-awoke inside Alex. Since day 1, Michael had always rearmed the system after entering the house, whether Alex was home or not. The sacrifice of removing his networked system from external tampering meant he no longer had access to phone alerts in the case of trouble. Anything capable of sending a signal off-site was also capable of being intercepted and interfered with, no matter how sophisticated the programming. He immediately made an about-face on his walkway to return to his SUV. Alex popped the back door and opened up the lock box in his trunk to retrieve his backup gun. The weight in his hand gave him a margin of comfort.

The house was quiet as Alex crept inside, gently laying his uniform on his entryway table. Michael’s black cowboy hat was hanging on its normal hook, the Chevy’s keys in the bowl, and a neat stack of mail was next to them. All signs that Michael had made it home from work and the garage without difficulty. 

The living room was empty, as was the music room.

The television was off and no other sounds came from within the house, as Alex silently cleared each room, from kitchen to guest room until finally he made it to the master bedroom. The door was barely ajar, hiding the full view of the bedroom from the hall entry. Carefully he thumbed off the safety on his gun, and used his left shoe to nudge open the door completely.

Star-fishing over the entire bed, with his face buried in Alex’s pillow, was Michael sound asleep. 

Relief hit in an almost knee-weakening manner as Alex carefully reset the safety on his gun and approached the bed. He hadn’t realized it until he set eyes on Michael, but his brain had fully expected to find an empty house and Michael gone, taken by the same people who had attacked him earlier. The dominos of pessimism falling inside his head, anxious and cynical and shaped by his experience, they naturally led to that worst case scenario.

Alex let out a shaky breath, silently chiding himself over his reactions and drank in the sight of Michael safe from imagined harm with relief.

It looked like Michael had managed to shed all of his clothes but his white briefs before dropping face-first into the bed. His curls looked dry and frizzy, evidence that perhaps Michael didn’t even manage the after-work shower. Alex sat on the bedside, reaching for his night stand to secure his gun in his safe. The movement on the mattress didn’t register at all on Michael.

What had Sanders been doing to Michael to leave him this tired? 

Shaking his head, Alex gathered up Michael’s clothes from the chair, and headed toward the laundry room to add them in with their dirty clothes. Once he started that chore, Alex moved through the house to rearm the security system, and then sat down to finish sorting the mail. Another hour passed, the television airing a muted evening news program that changed into a sitcom, that Alex half-watched while he waited for signs of Michael stirring. A quick check of the kitchen sink revealed that Michael must have dropped into bed for a nap without eating anything. 

Aliens didn’t require as much sleep as humans, something Alex had noticed, even before Michael had mentioned it. Alex’s own sleep patterns had changed once Michael had moved in, from a standard five hours to something closer to seven. Over the last week or so, more and more when Alex woke up, he found Michael peacefully sleeping next to him. This after work nap was new, and after three hours, the relief of finding Michael home after missing their date had changed back over into concern and worry. He told himself that even if Michael was tired, he still needed to eat something for dinner.

Decision made, Alex returned to the bedroom to gently place his hand on Michael’s bare shoulder to shake him awake. The skin under his palm felt hotter than normal but Alex couldn’t focus on that through the deepening alarm in finding Michael still asleep under his hand. Michael had a similar hair-trigger response to being touched as Alex did for shared reasons from his rough childhood in foster care. 

“Michael, wake up,” Alex called to him, shaking his shoulder again.

The combination of his voice and his hand finally had an effect on Michael, whose face wrinkled in slow-dawning awareness. “Hey…” he croaked in response, blinking owlishly at Alex.

“Hey?!” Alex moved his hand up to touch Michael’s forehead, a pointless muscle memory instinct considering Michael’s biology. Still it made him feel better, and Michael sighed in relaxation over the touch. 

“Home early,” Michael mumbled, his eyes half-closed again.

“It’s almost 9 o’clock.”

“Mmmm, no.”

“Yes, you missed dinner, which was supposed to be a date out.” Alex shook his shoulder gently, as he watched Michael’s eyes completely close. “Are you okay? How long have you been here?”

“Fine, just tired,” Michael opened his eyes again, looking more aware this time. “Fuck, I only laid down for a second before I was going to get up to shower and get dressed.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” 

At first, Michael opened his mouth to repeat himself, but then he paused with a frown. “Actually, I do feel a little weak, I think maybe I overdid it at work today, the lift at the garage is busted and I’m waiting on a part to fix it. Must have used my powers too much.”

“I have some nail polish remover if you need it,” Alex offered, threading his fingers through Michael’s hair. ‘Some’ was probably putting it mildly considering the jumbo-sized case he bought at Costco just after Caulfield as a preventative supply. At Michael’s nod, Alex moved to go bring him a bottle from the garage, only to halt at the plaintive sigh Michael made when he pulled away. 

“Go get it in a second, keep touching me for now, you feel so cool,” Michael mumbled, pulling Alex’s hand to cover his face again. “You always feel so good, Alex. Fuck.”

“If I didn’t know better, I would say you’re getting sick. You feel feverish to me.”

“Just run hot. I don’t get sick.”

Later, after Alex managed to get Michael to eat a grilled cheese sandwich after drinking a full bottle of acetone, he couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe Michael was wrong about not being about to get sick. Was it foolish to compare Michael’s behavior against that of a human, even if Alex recognized all of the symptoms; lack of hunger, fatigue, and feeling touch-starved as being all too real indications that something was wrong?

Aliens don’t get sick, he reminded himself, before Michael pulled him closer in bed, using Alex’s body as a full length cooling compress.

***

Absently, Alex rubbed the bridge of his nose under his reading glasses a few days later, as he finished some last minute paperwork on a Saturday morning at his kitchen table. Spread over the flat surface were a number of new bulletins for software implementation as the base prepared to move toward adopting the new supply chain risk management software that the DoD directives outlined, as a new set of cybersecurity guidelines were laid out. As the most experienced member of their cybersecurity team on the base, much of the ins and outs of the conversion and training were left up to Alex to review.

Work was usually diverting for Alex, but this morning, his mind kept going back to the test results that Liz had sent back from California. 

As Kyle had predicted, running a standard double-blind analysis through the Roswell Regional Medical Center’s toxicology panel hadn’t revealed anything concerning, especially considering the fact that Alex already took several different medications. The fun cocktail of pills that he took to handle his pain management and the PTSD-related depression and anxiety had muddied the results. Liz’s work at Genoryx had yielded access to cutting edge spectroscopy, used to clear patent challenges on their own proprietary discoveries. Alex’s blood sample had reported a number of new results, two of which were flagged according to her systems as patented formulas. The research on who exactly held the patents had led back to a handful of shell companies, each of them ending in a classified redacted name that spoke of Pentagon involvement. 

It wasn’t that Alex was surprised, because on the short list of people who would kidnap him for a weekend, the military was on top. His access to Area-51 was still superficially shallow, allowing him on the base but there were doors locked to even his top-secret clearance. It was hard to forget the fact that his brother Flint had been driving Noah’s body there before Rosa had engineered the crash and robbery. Recently, Isobel had gleaned from the minds of the MPs, during their work to stop Mr. Jones, that the facility had regular traffic from non-uniformed personnel, sporting on their identifications dull names as ‘Smith’, ‘White’ and ‘Johnson’ but polished accents hinting at power and money. 

The last year had been filled with distractions, chasing down after-action reports from 1947 when in reality he should have been tracing the funding for Caulfield and following up on the paramilitary involvement of the boot makers Trevor and Travis. How Helena Ortecho had been able to recruit recent resources from Caulfield, like his brother Flint, and the power-paralyzing agent that had been used on Michael, was still a largely unexplored avenue of interest. 

Identifying Charlie Cameron as a talent in weapons development, funding the equipment to synthesize her DNA-isolating pathogen to focus only on Jesse Manes had been no small endeavor of an expense for Helena to bankroll, as the low-key partner of a small town politician. It had also been clear that even if Alex had set aside his interest in Deep Sky or the money behind Caulfield to look more closely at Tripp Manes and 1947, the reverse had not been true. 

An abduction and being dosed for a weekend with a classified type of sedative that encouraged amnesia, or even more troubling, possibly being exposed to a drug designed for some sort of interrogation, meant that someone was still interested in Alex and what he knew. 

He reached for his cup of coffee, lifting it toward his mouth before he realized it was empty. Frowning, he looked over at the pot on the counter and realized that it was also empty. “Michael?” he called into the other room where Michael was watching cartoons, a ritual that Michael always indulged in when he could. What a delightful discovery that had been for Alex, seeing that macho cowboy act disappear into that of a little kid clutching a bowl of sugary cereal every Saturday morning. The world had moved on with morning and news shows these days, but Michael always found some animated show to watch while eating his Captain Crunch. “Did you finish off all the coffee?”

“Did I?”

Alex rolled his eyes, before getting up from his table and yelled back, “You did, indeed.”

A pair of hands came up behind him as he was refilling the carafe for a new pot, pulling Alex back against Michael’s body. “Sorry,” Michael apologized in his ear, kissing the back of his head then he gently shooed Alex back to his paperwork. “I’ll make you a new pot, you go finish this work, so we can get back to our weekend.”

“Got big plans?” Alex smirked, returning to his chair as Michael expertly moved through the kitchen to measure out the coffee grounds and pull the sugar bowl down. On base he would drink black coffee but at home, Michael knew that he preferred to indulge his sweet tooth.

“Yeah, last night I fell asleep before you could fuck my throat,” Michael replied matter-of-factly, his back turned to him, so he missed the reaction that Alex had, almost dropping his empty coffee cup. 

Trying to act as cool as Michael was, Alex picked up his papers as camouflage as his mouth lifted into a smile, “You were tired, and we’ve had a lot of sex over the last two weeks, I can understand it if my dick doesn’t thrill you anymore.”

“You call the last couple of weeks a lot of sex? That’s sad Alex, really.”

“What do you call it?”

“A good start on forever,” Michael finished, pulling Alex’s chair away from the table to seat himself in Alex’s lap, keeping his weight in the balls of his feet out of habit. Automatically, Alex brought his hands up to hold Michael close, meeting his mouth for a sweet, cinnamon-flavored kiss, the ghost of kids’ cereal between them. 

“I like the sound of that,” Alex replied, kissing him again, their lips sliding familiarly together. The morning sunlight spilled through the kitchen skylight, heating up the adobe tile under their feet and bringing out glints of gold in Michael’s hair. His hand slid up inside Michael’s soft t-shirt to follow along the path of firm muscles of his back. Blazing hot skin against his hands, Michael was enthaply in flesh and bone to Alex. The universe of Alex’s careful systems of before, decaying into disorder and chaos and infinite facination. 

God, he loved Michael.

The halo of curls that shadowed Michael’s face, his head tipped back as he let Alex move his lips from his mouth to his throat left Alex with the fleeting impression of an angel brought to earth in his lap. An angel that tempted him more than any demon, that was for sure as he looked at the still-in-progress paperwork on his table while the coffee pot finished perking in the background. The urge to turn, to lay Michael back on the table and then take him apart with his mouth over the boring Air Force paperwork was almost too strong to ignore, but Alex hadn’t made it this far in life by ignoring the shackles of duty over pleasure. “Does forever come with more coffee?”

“Oh wow, I see your priorities!” Michael dropped a kiss on his nose before carefully standing up, sweeping Alex’s empty mug into his hand. “More coffee then, my lord,” he teased, filling the cup from the new pot before setting down the cup in front of Alex. If Alex hadn’t been watching Michael’s big graceful hands closely, he would have missed the tremor that shook his grip, just as he released the lip of the cup. 

In slow motion, Alex watched as the cup tipped over, spilling hot black coffee over the spread out proposals on the table. They both reached at the same time, colliding in their attempts to snatch the papers away to save them from staining. Michael cursed creatively as he extended his hand toward the middle of the kitchen, where the towels hung neatly off the stove handle. 

Not even a flutter of movement from the towel rack.

“Michael!” Alex’s panicked shout broke Michael’s paralysis as he stared down at his hands, with a look of betrayal on his face. “Hey, what’s going on? Did you… did you just try to use your powers, and they didn’t work?”

“I don’t understand, that’s never happened-” Michael stared hard at the towels, his entire forehead creasing in effort. The air grew incredibly thick to breathe for Alex as if every molecule attempted to coalesce into a new form of matter under Michael’s telekinesis. A small trail of blood started to drip from Michael’s nose as finally the towel whipped across the room to slap into his open palm. The effort finished, he swayed on his feet but dodged Alex’s attempt to jump up and guide him into a seat. “I’m fine, that… that was just weird.”

“Stop saying you’re fine,” Alex ordered, stung by Michael’s side-step, and moved toward the sink while his pulse thundered in his ears out of fear. He turned the taps to wet a paper towel to help clean up the spilled coffee over his work. Michael, instead of stemming the blood from his nose, was using the towel to mop up the mess. What little patience Alex had left was gone, “Trash the papers,” he ordered tersely and grabbed his trash can from under the sink. He tossed the wet paper towel on the table and pulled another dry one free to press against Michael’s face. 

“I’m sorry about your work.” 

His apology was muffled from Alex’s attempt to stem the nosebleed but still audible enough to understand. “Michael, I literally could not give less of a shit about that.” 

“Sorry-”

Alex wrenched the paper towel away to peer closely at Michael’s face, there was a slight red smear of drying blood but no new signs of bleeding. A flashback from Crashcon still threatened to take hold, he remembered his father’s blood painting Michael’s face then it morphed into how Maria had been affected by the diffuser bomb, bleeding from her nose and eyes. He placed his shaky palm over Michael’s forehead, noting again that his skin still felt warm to the touch, above the alien-normal warm. “If you want to make it up to me, then you’ll be honest and tell me what just happened.”

For a long moment Michael stayed silent and Alex had to close his eyes to control the tremor of fear, beating its fists against his throat uselessly. Would Michael try to again deny that something unusual happened? His thumb rubbed away the lingering blood smear on Michael’s face before he rested his forehead against his. He wasn’t too proud to beg. “Please.” 

“I didn’t want to worry you,” Michael began weakly, before reaching up to pull Alex even closer. “I’ve been feeling really tired lately, okay? I thought maybe it was work, or sleeping somewhere new, or- I don’t know, I don’t have a good excuse. I swear, that’s the first time my powers didn’t work. It really has just been fatigue-”

This was what it felt like to have his heart live outside his body, Alex thought. Fragile muscle, beating wildly, with blood and tears just a thin slip of skin away from the harsh elements. “Well, I’m officially worried when you get a nose bleed trying to move a hand towel with your brain. So how about I finish cleaning this up while you go rest for a bit, and then we go see Kyle.”

Michael made a small face of dismay. “Kyle!”

“Yes, Kyle, the only alien doctor we have with Liz in California. Please. If you want me to get on my knees for a less fun reason than usual I will-”

At least the weakness for each other went both ways. It only took another swift look at Alex’s face for Michael to drop his protest meekly and nod in acquiescence. “I’ll get my shoes.”

***

“When did the symptoms first start?”

Michael shifted on the examination bed swinging his legs back and forth to tap restlessly against the side of metal drawers that lined the base of the foam covered platform. The ubiquitous white sanitary tissue paper stretched over the table, crinkling with his restless movements, but he was seemingly paying no attention to Kyle. He was studying the various framed landscape pictures that were intermixed with posters, detailing the warning signs of a heart attack with recommendations of actions (give the patient aspirin), the stroke checklist of action and then finally the importance of a vaccination schedule for children. Alex reached over from his chair, conscious of how Kyle was watching them with interest, and squeezed Michael’s lower leg for his attention, stilling the fidgety swing.

“He said he’s been tired for a while. I think it was Wednesday, we were supposed to meet for dinner at the Crashdown but Michael took a nap after work and overslept,” Alex answered for him, before nodding toward Kyle deliberately, telegraphing with his eyes to Michael to please cooperate.

“Is that normal for you?” Kyle asked, his pen poised on his notepad. 

“No,” Michael finally replied, leaving his study of the doctor’s office decor to acknowledge Kyle at last. “I’ve been getting 6 or 7 hours of sleep a night lately, and my species doesn’t seem to need more than three hours to function.”

“Could you be depressed?” Kyle paused, then asked the question at large in the room, “can aliens even get depressed?”

This time Michael turned toward where Alex was sitting to answer, “Yes, aliens can get depressed, but I’m not. I know what that feeling is, and right now, I’ve never been happier in my life.” The justification for why was clear as he stared at Alex with soft pleading eyes. 

“So fatigue but no outside factors like increased workload, stress, depression. What about pain, chronic or otherwise?” 

Both Alex and Michael dropped their gaze down to Michael’s left hand at the question. The memory of the scars and wrecked crooked joints was so strong, it almost overlaid in Alex’s mind the reality of the perfectly healed hand from Max’s unwanted intervention. 

Michael stretched his fingers absently, “No worse than usual.”

Kyle’s head shot up from the notes he was taking in almost unintelligible black script. “What does that mean?”

“It means, when I was a teenager, my hand got hurt really badly,” This time Michael carefully avoided looking toward Alex as he spoke, “And then my holier-than-thou brother healed it a year or so ago without my permission, but when you spend ten plus years holding things a certain way, feeling the rain and seasons change, that builds a type of muscle memory. It’s not new, it still sometimes hurts for no reason, but I’ve never felt tired because of it, and I certainly never lost my abilities during that time.”

“Right,” Kyle cleared his throat, looking sideways at Alex who had slumped a little in misery during Michael’s speech, before straightening his shoulders in professionalism to press on with his notes. “So you understand chronic pain, but it’s not a new symptom. Out of curiosity, how did you treat it?”

“How do you think?”

“I prefer not to guess when it comes to patient history.”

Michael sighed at Kyle’s refusal to rise to the bait, and looked upward toward the ceiling instead, his legs swinging again. “I drank a lot to numb the pain. Mainly acetone, but not always. You had to do organic chemistry for med school, so I imagine you’re familiar with propanone, and the chemical structures of ketones?” He waited for Kyle to nod in understanding before continuing, “Basically I can drink denatured alcohol, ethanol, isopropyl alcohol, anything that works as a solvent. I’ve got a funny story about living with a drunk in Santa Fe as a nine-year-old after being placed with meth cooks to tell you, if you’re ever curious on how we stumbled on nail polish remover as being the most palatable source-”

Although Kyle looked fascinated in the same measure he was horrified, it was Alex that halted that train wreck of a story with a quiet, “Michael.”

“Right.” Kyle wrote a few more notes on his pad, before continuing his questions about diet, the types of food Michael was eating, if he had any upset stomach issues or vomiting, all of which Michael answered boredly. Only a slight lift of an eyebrow betrayed Kyle’s curiosity when Michael turned to Alex for help in recalling the details of the last two weeks' dinner items. Still he maintained a steady, forthright manner of questions, moving from food to the list of harmful vices, like cigarettes and alcohol. “Would you say your consumption of acetone or other chemicals has increased, decreased or stayed the same lately?”

“I drank two bottles of acetone on the car ride over here, but before that, I probably haven’t had more than a bottle of acetone in one sitting for a while.” 

“A while?”

Michael rolled his eyes and sighed again at the prompting tone. “At least a couple of weeks, but yeah, I can’t be more precise, Doc. I use my powers every day, so of course, I drink a little acetone every day, but it’s not like I’m keepin’ a diary. I can tell you I haven't been on a bender since my mom got blown up and my brother killed himself to bring back your sister, if that helps.”

This time it was Kyle’s turn to keep his eyes carefully on the clipboard of notes at the reminder of Caulfield, his mouth drawn thin with pain. Proving that he wasn’t immune to Michael’s jabs, the politeness had flattened into a sharpness, “I have a few more questions of a personal nature to ask if you want Alex to step outside-”

“He can stay.”

“I don’t have to-” Alex offered as Kyle spoke at the same time, “Are you sure?”

“Alex,” Michael lifted his foot to nudge Alex in reassurance from his seat on the table, “There’s nothing he could ask, that I wouldn’t tell you myself, so it’s fine.” He turned back to Kyle, and gestured with his hand to wave Kyle on in his list. “Do your worst, Valenti.”

That was all the encouragement Kyle needed. “How many sexual partners have you had in the last six months?”

It wasn’t Michael, to his credit, that exploded at the question, but Alex. 

“What the fuck, Kyle! How the fuck is that relevant to his symptoms of feeling tired and not being able to use his powers this morning? You think he fucked the alienness out of him?” He was aware of the profanity peppering his speech, a clear sign of anger wrapped around fear, but he wasn’t aware that he was on his feet edging closer to Kyle until Alex felt the hard plastic edge of Kyle’s clipboard against his chest.

“He’s an alien, we don’t know what’s relevant and what’s not-”

“-that question is ridiculous, he’s not pregnant-”

“-or are you a doctor now, Captain-”

“Ten.” Michael replied, cutting off the discussion abruptly. He jumped off the table to pull Alex back from Kyle with a nervous laugh, looking back and forth between them. Alex moved away easily from crowding Kyle, and turned to take up the space near the closed door of the examination room with folded arms. Although he was out of his military uniform, Alex still looked the part of a protective guard with his tight jaw. 

Seemingly reassured that the two men weren’t going to continue the fight, Michael scolded them gently, “As I was once reminded, the walls at the hospital aren’t soundproof, so maybe we can stop yelling about aliens, okay? And to answer your question Valenti, I’ve had ten different sexual partners in the last six months, most of that came much earlier than any of my symptoms,” he finished, glancing at Alex again as he rubbed the back of his head casually. 

“I didn’t ask that question out of prurient interest, okay?” Kyle replied, picking up his clipboard again. 

“Even if you did, I’m not ashamed of enjoying sex, but I think I would have noticed years ago if sex with humans had this sort of effect on my powers.” Michael leaned against the table, glancing back over at Alex with a secret smile. “I mean, considering how I spent a lot of 2013, I wouldn’t have been able to lift a paperclip if that had been the case.” Alex coughed a little, trying to keep from blushing as he remembered that had been when he was assigned to Clovis and Michael had shown up on weekends sometimes.

“Well I’m trying to figure out what questions to ask, narrow down what changed, what could be affecting you now, that didn’t before. Doing a differential diagnosis for a whole other species is like trying to repair an airplane engine from the manual of a cruise ship, I assume the impeller still turns, just in wildly different directions.” Kyle tapped his pen against his notes, “So let’s go back to the beginning, start with the first time you felt something different-”

Frustrated, Michael raked his hands through his hair with an explosive exhale. “I’ve tried, okay? I haven’t done anything in the last two weeks that I haven’t done before. Food is the same, work is the same, and sex- well, trust me, Alex and I have had ten years, on and off, where we’ve had sex in every position you can think of, and probably some you can’t think of because we invented it-.” 

“Michael-” 

“Sorry, I know that was probably too much-”

“Michael.” Alex cut him off sharply from making any more apologies as he moved away from the door to stand next to the bed. Slowly, with his stomach dropping straight into his shoes, he reached for Michael’s hands, those deft and skillful fingers. Plucking from between the soft vulnerable webbing of his middle and ring finger, Alex lifted a too-thick strand of hair left behind from his casual sweep against his head to show him. Cautiously he placed his own hand against Michael’s riotous curls, stroking with just the barest touch. More hair fell freely away, causing Alex to jerk his hand away from Michael in horror. 

“Oh… that’s new,” Michael replied, his face draining of color. 

Kyle stood up to take a closer look at Michael’s hair, his own expression drawing tight with concern. Then he moved quickly, snapping on gloves to touch and prod Michael’s head before frowning, “Okay, definitely not depression and something is clearly going on. Let’s draw some blood, probably a lot of blood. I probably need to call Liz, it’s been a long time since I did my rotation with Pathology and no one knows more about alien blood chemistry than she does.”


	5. Chapter 5

At some point, the small but insistent voice inside of Alex’s head spoke up to remind him, _“You’ve never deserved to be happy.”_ It was the voice that kept an accurate scorecard of every failure but always rounded down on the decimal point of success. It voiced the replays of every time he didn’t quite measure up to his own expectations with surgical accuracy, and it always filled his head with static nonsense of ‘no one cares’ when he thought about being emotionally vulnerable by choice. 

He had done a lot of work on that voice, but it still sounded like his father, it still used that calm, even tone of his, the one that had looked down on his snot-wrecked face as a bruised, frightened child and said, _“Your attempts to emotionally manipulate your way out of this punishment are wasted, crying is just making this messier.”_ The man was rotting in a grave, but that voice lived on inside, stubborn like a weed, squeezing between moments of feeling safe, moments of feeling happy to whisper that darkness. “ _This is your punishment, I will take everything you care about away from you until you can be a real man, son.”_

Alex squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment at the traffic light, shoving that voice down deep again as he felt that old defense mechanism tug at him. This was not about him, his father was dead, and the fear of him taking his revenge out on people Alex cared about was over. He couldn’t afford to lose himself in that old war. The last year was already pockmarked with moments of complacency, where he had lost sight of the needs of others during his own search for answers, and it had ended with his own kidnapping. Eyes open, he refocused on driving, watching Michael fiddle with the band aid on his arm, marking the area where Kyle had taken several vials of blood. 

The needle mark had bled stubbornly afterwards at the hospital, concerning Kyle, but Michael had flat out refused to stay under observation of any kind while they waited for Kyle to have the opportunity to steal pathology lab equipment to run his tests. Everyone vetoed the idea of sending the blood to California, the proximity to Genoryx and revealing aliens to them, was too close to chance.

The band aid and vials of blood reminded Alex of his own recent experience, those lost days. The suggestion that a military-backed project was behind his abduction was all but undeniable and that dropped a new pang of wariness in Alex. He had been taken out of commission for a whole weekend, his home had been completely vulnerable during that time. Was it a less direct power play to harm Michael as the target?

“This isn’t the way to your house,” Michael observed, shifting in his seat to watch the turn off toward Alex’s modest neighborhood pass behind. 

“I’m taking you to Isobel’s.”

Predictably his decision met with a quick rejection from Michael. “What- No! What the hell, Alex, I just want to go back with you.” 

The naked plea in his voice was hard to ignore as Alex wrapped his fingers around the steering wheel. “I just think it would be better- safer, I mean, you do recall someone kidnapped me for two days, right? You felt fine before you moved in, so what if they left some sort of alien poison in my house?”

“And what if it’s a contagious pathogen and then I infect Isobel, ever think of that?”

Alex paused considering that, and hit the turn signal to change directions, “That’s a good point, I’ll take you to Maria’s-”

“Who’s part alien and also my ex-girlfriend, and while we’re cool, we’re _not_ that cool for sleepovers.” Michael reached over to lay his hand on Alex's leg, “Deep breath, back up about five steps in your brain for me, okay? If you think there’s something wrong with the house, let’s start there.”

“All right, if the house is compromised, the only thing that has changed for you in the last couple of weeks, then I should take you somewhere that is _not there._ What about Walt?”

“Walt?” Michael repeated blankly before the name registered. “Sanders? Wait, since when is he ‘Walt’?”

Wise to how Michael liked to argue, by changing the subject or diverting to a detail, Alex sighed but relented in answering, “Not that it’s relevant, but he knew your mom, and I wanted to know her too. She’s a part of you, but I didn’t want to make you sad, so I’ve been buying him a bottle of whiskey. In return, he’s been telling me what he remembers about her for the last couple of months. He could drink my whole squad under the table, by the way.”

Michael was silent, his lips pressed tightly together. Alex glanced sideways, watching how his nostril flared, a sign of Michael wrestling with a heavy emotion. His hand tightened on Alex’s leg, “I don’t know what to say to that. We weren’t even together then-”

“Too much then? Too creepy?”

“Nah, it’s just a reminder of how much time we wasted apart. Can we stop doing that? Can we just go home?”

Against his better judgment, Alex slowly signaled to turn back toward his neighborhood. Michael called the house ‘home’ dissolved any counter argument he could marshall. “Don’t drink anything from the tap when we get home, I want to check the water filtration system and examine the HVAC.”

***

An extensive search through the plumbing of the house, from inside of the faucets, to the filter in the refrigerator and ice maker yielded no sign of tampering. Michael used his telekinesis, which seemed to be back at his beck and call, to examine the city water hook up and found it also clear of foreign objects. Much like the first night that Michael had stayed over, Alex went through his house with a trash bag, removing anything that could possibly be a possible source of Michael’s troubling symptoms.

Hand soaps, shampoos, even the hanging cedar air freshener in the coat closet was trashed during Alex’s careful purge. 

Michael watched him from the couch with an uneasy expression, as Alex moved through the house with a black trash bag, the sides beginning to bulge with contents. All of his life, Michael had stayed on the edge of poverty, even after he rose above teenage homelessness, that some years he tumbled right over the edge into the heavy grasp of food insecurity and disconnected utilities. All it took was a late paycheck from the ranch or a bullshit municipal fine levied against his trailer for squatting, and he was back to measuring out his money between keeping fuel in his truck or food in his stomach. The ability to dispose of nearly full shaving cream and hand lotion was a luxury of financial security that Michael had never enjoyed. It was wasteful, but wisely he said nothing to Alex as he sat with Alex’s phone to order replacement dish soap and toiletries for home delivery. 

The frown Alex earned from Michael when he trashed the half-empty jumbo bottle of lubricant was at least comically pained. Sadly it was the most obvious source Alex could think of considering how much sex they had had over the last few weeks. Once the house was clean of anything that might carry a poison and all sealed bottles were carefully examined in a basin of water, Alex took an exhausted seat next to Michael.

“So what next? You threw out all the food when I arrived, now you’ve emptied this place out of everything else, even the potpourri from the bathroom, and I gotta tell you Alex, you might regret that if we do enchiladas again-” Michael trailed off with a slow teasing grin, his head resting against the back of the couch. 

“Funny. At least the weather is nice enough for open windows, I won’t have to run the HVAC system until I can get the replacement filters delivered.” Alex dropped his hand to thigh to rub at the barking muscles strained in his room-by-room sweep.

“I dunno, having open windows might invite a break in from your black helicopter buddies-” The joke Michael attempted died awkwardly between them as Alex frowned in consideration. “Hey, I know you know this, but there’s a fine line between being cautious and being deeply paranoid.”

Alex looked down as Michael covered his hand, stilling Alex’s massage on his leg briefly before taking it over. He sighed and stretched toward Michael’s touch, smiling ruefully. “You say that, but I don’t actually know that there’s a line, not when it comes to you.”

“Ripping open the walls of this house to inspect the insulation is the line, okay?” Michael paused his ministrations to gesture at the four corners of the room in emphasis. “And we don’t actually know if my stupid nosebleed and premature hair loss is connected to your house.”

“You know I would do that for you, right? I’d take this place down to bare studs, but honestly, selling it would be easier.” Old wounds ached a little inside of Alex as he caught Michael’s quick head turn toward him. Knowing that he had given Michael good reason in the past to doubt his commitment, didn’t make it any easier for him during these small, fleeting glimpses of insecurity that still surfaced in Michael’s eyes.

“Don’t be ridiculous, you’re not going to sell your house because of me-”

Pulling his leg away from Michael’s grasp, Alex slid closer to him on the couch. Careful not to touch his hair, Alex cupped Michael’s face in his hands with gentle palms and brought him in for a long, sweet kiss. “Sure I would. This goes both ways, I promise. The things I would do to protect you-” 

Michael pursed his lips, either to reassure or downplay the subject Alex wasn’t sure, because Alex moved back to deepen the kiss, silencing him. Kissing Michael always felt like a cliff dive into the deep, where love always surrounded him so fully he felt like he could burst from the joy of it. His heartbeat swelling up into his throat, like an eardrum ready to pop from the pressure. Slowly he broke the kiss, leaving Michael’s lips wet and flushed. “I really don’t know how to rein that in, to find some reasonable place of caution?”

“Hope you’re not lookin’ to me for advice, ‘cause I built a weapon of mass destruction for you.” Michael smiled, quirking his eyebrow before he yawned widely before clapping his hand over his mouth in embarrassment. “Sorry…”

“Tired?” Alex moved his grip up to stroke the fragile thin skin under Michael’s eyes with his thumbs. 

After a brief pause, Michael nodded in answer honestly. “Yeah, still really tired. It just sucks. I mean, heavy fatigue, nosebleed, do you think aliens can get cancer?” 

“I don’t know. I mean you didn’t think you could get sick at all. Cancer is cell mutation at its base definition, triggered by an overactive gene or environmental cause.” Very gingerly Alex reached up to rub his fingers against the trailing curl that always flopped over Michael’s eye rebelliously. Even the daintiest touch of his finger caused several hairs to drop away. “Hair loss is usually caused by chemotherapy to treat cancer though, most of the time, not cancer itself.” 

“Do you think you’ll still love me if all my hair ends up falling out?” Michael joked with a thread of worry in his voice.

Alex squinted, tilting his head to the side as if to consider it, before leaning in to kiss Michael. His mouth stretched easily into a smile, despite the worry clawing inside, as they kissed between giggles. “Haven’t yet found a way to fall out of love with you, and I’ve seen you ruin bourbon with nail polish remover.” 

It took only the gentlest urging by Alex to guide Michael up from his boneless slouch on the couch to find the bedroom to rest. Despite the big talk from that morning about sex and blowjobs in the kitchen, Michael seemed content just to make out with him, heavy-lidded eyes and sloppy limbs, in bed. Where that might have led to more a couple of days ago, now Michael’s eyes slipped closed as he yielded to the tug of war with unconsciousness.

In the meantime, Alex was wide awake. He inspected the ceiling and air vents suspiciously, his mind trying to solve the mystery with a stubborn obsessive recall, as Michael breathed shallowly on the pillow beside him. Already more than a few strands of hair were left behind on the silk pillowcase as Michael rolled closer to him, seeking the reassurance of Alex in his sleep. 

Although rooted in a different concern than what Michael had joked about, Alex was gravely concerned at the sight of Michael’s hair thinning. It reminded him too much of what Michael’s people had looked like under the care of the Air Force in Caulfield after 70 years of internment. With an eye on Michael’s deeply sleeping form, he slowly moved away from him, to the edge of the bed, and palmed his phone from the bedside table. Using his crutches to swing and hop his way back to the living room, Alex slowly dropped down in his arm chair before calling Kyle. 

Away from Michael’s more-than-just-alien hot body, a shiver of cold from the open windows wrapped tiny icy fingers around his spine as he held the phone to ear patiently. Once the line clicked open, Alex didn’t even wait for the pleasantries of hello from Kyle, “The more I think about it, the more I think he’s being poisoned somehow. Hair loss and fatigue, that’s like what happens with cadmium right? You can’t serve over in Iraq without hearing stories about Gulf War Syndrome and heavy metals-”

“Breathe, Alex, slow down. I’m running tests on that, of course, but he drinks acetone-”

“You don’t know how it could affect-”

This time Kyle interrupted with a cold slice of logic, knife sharp in his calm voice, “Actually, thanks to Caulfield, I _do know_ exactly how aliens react to certain things that would make you and I sick. I don’t know how much cold comfort it is, but our dads ran a project that spent a lot of time torturing Guerin’s people and documenting every minute of it, so yes, I can rule a few things out.” Then the healer that was in Kyle took over as his voice softened in understanding, “But if you think he’s being poisoned, go ahead and take samples of your water, and anything else you think it might be, okay? I’ll run them too.”

“It’s not a coincidence that someone took me out of commission for a weekend and now Michael’s getting sick, okay? It just isn’t,” Alex insisted quietly.

“Considering how married you guys are to one another, and thanks for that life update, buddy, I appreciate finding out about that only after the fact.” There was a clatter and whirl in the background of the call, letting Alex know that he had interrupted Kyle at work despite the late hour. Now he felt guilty both for calling Kyle and for neglecting their friendship. “I’m focusing on trying to isolate toxins that are benign to you and I, but would affect only Guerin.”

“Like how the bomb Flint had only affected aliens.”

“Right, and I’m a surgeon, Alex, I didn’t study bioweaponry my second year of med school,” Kyle reminded him tiredly.

There was a whisper soft noise in the doorway, Alex looked up from his phone guiltily to find Michael watching him with squinty eyes. Before he could apologize, Michael shuffled over to the armchair to pull Alex’s phone from his grasp and bring up to his mouth, “You should find Charlie Cameron, Jenna’s sister. She knows her way around killing people and aliens thanks to working for DoD and Helena Ortecho. Now I’m going to take Alex back to bed and let you work in peace,” Michael paused, briefly before muttering a quiet but heartfelt, “thanks for what you’re doing.”

He swiped to end the call but kept Alex’s cell in his hand. “Can’t sleep?” Michael dropped his free hand into Alex’s hair, stroking his fingertips through the soft dark hair. “Want me to get one of your pills?”

Even when he was clearly feeling terrible, Michael was still giving in his attention and generous about it with Alex. The free way in which he touched, encouraging Alex to hide his stubbled face against his bare sleep-warm stomach, quieted that voice inside. That voice that berated him for leaning on Michael for comfort when Michael was the one who was sick. “Probably should for tonight, I’m not going to sleep otherwise. Um, but for tomorrow night, how do you feel about spending the night in a Roswell Travelodge? Just, so I can close my eyes and not picture my house killing you silently.”

“All right,” Michael sighed, clearly reading the need in Alex’s pleading upturned face. “If it makes you feel better, sure, but on two conditions.”

“Yeah?”

“First, I get the tiny hotel shampoos. And second, you better buy a new bottle of lube tomorrow, I’m not passing up sex in a hotel bed, I don’t care how tired I am.”

*** 

It was a little crowded in the newly rebuilt section of the hospital that had been fire-damaged over a year ago. 

Finding Charlie through Jenna Cameron, meant that Max was now up to date on what was going on with Michael, and by extension that brought Isobel in as well. The resulting confrontation between the aliens had Kyle shushing them all once again with the reminder that the walls were not soundproof. Worryingly, Michael was the first to fall silent, out of his normal energy for biting sarcasm when it came to sparring with Max. 

The space that had once been devoted to Liz and Dr. Avila’s research was now sitting empty and fully outfitted, while the hospital administrator interviewed research partners and grant proposals. It had been Liz’s suggestion from California, to borrow the space without permission, especially since it was unlikely the locks had been changed since the fire. There was still an element of risk, that curious hospital staff might wonder why the hospital’s surgical resident kept disappearing into the research and development wing of the facility. An electronic keypad and a set of surveillance cameras would have gone a long way in calming Alex’s security concerns, but those had been reduced to rubble.

He struggled to keep from glaring at Max, the force behind that lost lab space housed at the old residential school. Outside of the fact that it had been a wasted resource, covering for its destruction had required Alex to spend several sessions of high level hacking of Department of Defense data servers, along with calling in a favor from a friend at the NSA to check his work, to completely redact the Residential School from the listing of Air Force properties. 

Meanwhile, Charlie had shoved Kyle out of the way of the microscope with a sharp elbow, and snapped her fingers for the slides of Michael’s blood impatiently. She had eagerly agreed to help them, only trading a small smirk with Michael on arrival after her sharp eyes tracked how close Alex stood next to him. Her muttered comment of _“It’s complicated, yeah right”_ that made zero sense to Alex but caused Michael to wink at her, unrepentant. 

During his kidnapping by Helena, Alex hadn’t spent much time at all with the more mysterious Cameron sister, but the same wasn’t true of Michael. It was apparent that the two of them had a level of comfort with each other, the bonds of genius closing the gaps in acquaintance. Charlie’s long blonde no-nonsense ponytail marked the most physical difference from the absent Liz, as she unconsciously modeled Liz’s behavior. “This is not bad for a slice and dice guy.”

“Gee thanks, approval from Oppenheimer, just what I always wanted.” 

Kyle, after he had received the details of Charlie’s background, particularly her work with the military, had made his discomfort with working with her known. In Kyle’s opinion, the unethical application of her research, of making a weapon so genetically specific that it just targeted the matriarchal mitochondrial DNA shared by family members, was so obvious it could be visible from space.

Instead of taking offense at being compared to the designer of the first atomic weapon, Charlie smiled coolly, “Make yourself useful and gather some more samples. I can’t figure out what’s different from Guerin’s blood without something to compare it to.”

Max and Isobel stood on the other side of the room from Michael who was seated next to Alex but stayed tucked against his side. The thin precaution against the possibility that there was some contagious pathogen was the only thing that was keeping Isobel from pulling Michael away into her own hold, but Alex would take the victory as he kept his arm around Michael. Outside of that silent tug of war over Michael with his sister, it was Max of course, providing Alex the more challenging fight. No sooner had Kyle started to explain the situation to everyone, than Max had approached Michael with an outstretched hand and an offer to heal him.

It had not gone well. The look of discomfort (or was that fear?) on Michael’s face had sent Alex forward to step between the two alien siblings while Michael sputtered behind him. _“What, no, not with your heart being weak- and this time, you’re going to respect my ‘no’,”_ Michael had finished firmly, before tugging Alex back from the confrontation.

Max had seemed to reluctantly accept Michael’s flat refusal and kept his arms squared in suspicion, watching Charlie hum to herself and flip through the paper files of Project Shepherd. 

Predictably the mention of samples had him bristling further. Alex hadn’t forgotten the impetus behind Liz’s departure either. Another scientist further studying their biology wasn’t sitting well, even though Max seemed to trust Kyle more than Alex remembered. With Liz gone, an unlikely friendship had blossomed between the two former romantic rivals.

“Before we offer up more of our secrets,” Max glanced over with warning at Michael’s slouched form next to Alex, both of them pressed shoulder-to-shoulder in the plastic chairs that populated almost every hospital. “The last time I checked, you were the architect to a pathogen that almost wiped my family off the planet. Can’t you recognize your own work here without taking more from us?”

“For one thing,” Charlie answered, still looking into the microscope, “this isn’t my work. I created something designed to kill a victim quickly. Fatigue and hair loss isn’t exactly the type of results the US military was looking for.”

Kyle muffled a snort of disgust about the military before pulling out a series of vials and a tourniquet for blood collection. With an apologetic smile, he approached Max and Isobel, “Age before beauty? Who wants to go first?”

“Guess you want me first then,” Isobel flirted, holding out her arm easily. “I can’t possibly compete with your Hardy Boy friendship with Max. Which is a real shame, for you, Kyle.”

“Oh my god, kill me,” Michael mumbled, leaning into Alex’s shoulder. “I’m dying, and she’s flirting with Valenti-”

“As I recall, when _she_ was dying, she was still flirting with Kyle,” Max put in, softening from his dark mood at Isobel’s antics, even as he blushed a little at Isobel’s teasing. 

Alex had aced his class Strategy and War class in OCS, so he knew that Max’s gentle retaliation against Isobel’s poke at him was doomed to failure. Underestimating the opponent was a classic failure in battle, especially the underestimation of how far someone would go to win.

The shark-like smile on Isobel’s face was the first warning, as she watched Kyle professionally locate a vein. “Well, Max, I had to do something while I waited for your girlfriend to cure me back then, and ogling the good doctor here was quite diverting. Speaking of Liz, who’s going to draw the short straw in calling her back here? There’s no one on this planet who knows more about our biology and how it works, than her.”

Kyle didn’t look up from swapping vials and capping the blood sample, “I called her after I saw Guerin the other day. She’s going to consult through Facetime.”

“Facetime?” Isobel looked skeptical. “I’ve seen how that girl works, and it’s hands-on-”

“We all agreed,” Alex cut in quietly, “that it was too risky to send any alien biological material to her, since Genoryx might get a hold of it.”

“Back to my original point,” Isobel argued, wincing slightly as Kyle withdrew the needle, before pressing a soft white cotton ball over the puncture. “We need her here. She probably wants to hear that from you, Max, and not Kyle.”

Without protest, Max started to unbutton his long-sleeved shirt to roll up the cuff for access for Kyle. “It’s not that easy, Iz-”

“Oh come on, who hasn’t violated another person’s bodily autonomy in this room for the greater good?”

At this point, Alex became aware that Charlie had pushed back from the microscope and was watching Isobel with great interest. Alex cleared his throat, “Um, I haven’t-”

Isobel didn’t spare him a glance, “You served three tours overseas, Alex, try again. And Kyle benefited here from Liz’s actions, since it saved his girlfriend, but he’s probably the only innocent person in this room. Because Michael, well he lied to me for years about what happened in the cave, and speaking of the cave, Max, what you did to both Rosa _and_ Michael, you have exactly zero standing here.”

“What monstrous thing did you do?” Charlie asked. 

“After my now-dead ex used my body to murder a girl, I jumped into the brain of her grieving sister to send her away, and then ten years later, I did it again, but this time I just mentally manipulated a sweet old man, so he wouldn’t question having his now-resurrected daughter back in his life. And I did it all for the greater good of protecting this secret. So,” Isobel turned back to Max, whose face had grown tighter and thinner throughout her speech, “Call Liz. Get her back here.”

“Iz, he doesn’t have to do that,” Michael spoke up finally, his voice raspy and weak. “We’ve got two geniuses in this room between Charlie and I, plus Kyle’s kinda smart too, we can figure this out on our own, if Max isn’t comfortable doin’ that-”

Charlie cut Michael off, “Hey, can I weigh in here on this drama or do you have to be dating one of ya’ll to get a vote?” She paused dramatically, narrowing in on Max. “Okay, I already know I didn’t create this, but judging by how Michael’s cells are acting, something is turning off the lights so to speak, in the nucleus of the cell. Now, from the notes Michael brought me, about the original death serum Dr. Ortecho made, there are some startling similarities happening now with her original research track. Except, whatever is going on here, is only slowed by the reversal serum. It’s like there’s an ongoing attack on the cellular structures. So if I get a vote, I say grovel, because this isn’t going to be easy to solve.”

***

Five days later, Alex laid flat on the hotel bed looking up at the plain white ceiling with his only soundtrack the sound of Michael’s breathing, harsh and uneven, growing more and more labored in his sleep. The bulk box of nail polish remover was nearly half empty, Michael was now drinking three or four bottles a day to combat the persistent weakness he felt. A syringe, loaded with a dose of Liz’s cure, rested on the cheap particle board nightstand ubiquitous to every chain-hotel decor. 

After Max had reluctantly admitted to clearing out the stockpile of the cure from both Michael’s trailer and the reserve that Liz had left behind in Kyle’s safe-keeping, the first priority of the newly assembled group of Charlie, Kyle, and Michael, was to replenish the supply. Like she had observed before, it was effective in halting the effects in Michael’s cells temporarily, but for now that was the only treatment that Charlie could offer up currently.

A detailed examination of Michael’s day revealed that there seemed to be peaks and valleys in how well he felt. Hours when he couldn’t lift a feather with his telekinesis, but then the ability would kick back in later in the day. The extreme fatigue hit the worst in the mornings and late evening hours, and the nosebleeds were coming more frequently with use of his powers. Michael had grudgingly reported feeling more under the weather as the days went by, but he still flatly refused to be monitored in a hospital setting, no matter how many promises Kyle made to keep it concealed. 

Yesterday was considered a good day for Michael. 

Alex had left the hotel for an early morning conference call with the east coast software engineers on base, but had dropped by the junkyard to bring Michael a late lunch. He had found himself pushed back into the Airstream by an energetically amorous Michael for an ‘afternoon delight’ on the thin mattress. Not even Alex wearing his OCPs was enough to slow him down. Between hungry fingers and telekinesis, the camouflage uniform was on the floor of the trailer in five short minutes of focused effort. Minute six had Michael on his knees swallowing Alex down. And for that brief period of time, it was as if nothing was wrong.

That had been the good part of the day. Just after Alex had left the base at the end of his day, he had received a concerned call from Walt, reporting that Michael was passed out in the cab of his truck. The energy and vitality from earlier had completely vanished, leaving behind too-pale skin, a wad of blood-stained tissues, and Michael half-slurring his words in drowsiness. Alex had made an illegal U-turn to head toward Sanders, breaking the speed limit in his haste. On arrival Alex had found Michael arguing weakly with Sanders, the two of them cursing each other over their mutual stubbornness, but with Alex backing up Walt, they had managed to encourage Michael to stay put for the night at the salvage yard. 

Alex had had another early morning meeting scheduled on the base that required the secured line to facilitate. Between the narrow cot for two men, Alex’s mobility needs, and the extra fifteen minutes to his commute, it had made more sense to leave Michael to sleep alone in his trailer. Alex had returned to his own house for the night, after securing promises from both Michael and Walt to call him if something happened. 

It was the first night they had spent apart in over four weeks. The gun migrated from the bedside table to under his pillow, and he had ended up taking one of his prescribed sleep aids to blunt the edges of worry with Michael sleeping across town. The next morning he had sleepwalked through his duties on base and broke the rules about using a personal cell phone in the server room without a trace of guilt, just to receive text updates from Michael. (“ _Morning 😍. Missed your snoring last night_ ” then “ _Tell ‘Walt’ I’m fine for me, he won’t believe me_ ” and “ _I lifted a Subaru today without breaking a sweat, we gotta celebrate tonight_ ” and finally “ _By celebrate I mean dinner at Arturo’s but also 🍆💦_ ”)

Michael had greeted him that night at the Crashdown with a hot, almost pornographic kiss against the shadowed brick wall of the diner, complaining between breaks for air about not seeing Alex for almost a day. There had been a renewed sparkle in his eyes, wicked and lustful, as he sat on the other side of the booth from Alex and shared a milkshake. Throughout dinner Michael had maintained the ritual of their earlier dates, playing footsie under the table, hand holding, the little touches that they had negotiated as an acceptable PDA. The promise that things were different now. The past closet and the fear of rejection were gone, and Michael remained fully committed to holding to that vow, even though Alex had seen the energy drain slowly away as the evening progressed. 

The drive back to the Travelodge, with Michael following behind in his truck, had seemed to breathe new life into him as he waited for Alex to return with a room key. Enough of a spark that the bedding had been tossed to the ground as Michael made good on his text promise, hurriedly preparing himself before climbing on top of Alex and sinking down on his cock.

Then. Then it happened.

That initial burst of initiative and energy had vanished, slipping like water through cupped hands. Michael had slumped heavily on Alex, the bubble of telekinesis that had always been there to help them both find traction and balance was gone. And Alex, he couldn’t help but notice that Michael no longer had an erection either. 

The truth of the matter was that Alex was no stranger to the frustrating challenges of a body that didn’t always behave, with his medication sometimes playing havoc on getting or staying hard, but Michael had never experienced that. And stubbornly Michael had tried to deny what was happening, moving his hips up and down in desperation, even though it was plain to see that his body was not cooperating.

With Alex’s own enjoyment gone, it had taken some careful coaxing to convince Michael that the plan for the night had to be revised. To simply hold one another in the dark. The truth was, Michael didn’t even have the energy to fight that suggestion, falling asleep while Alex was brushing his teeth.

As Alex laid there in the dark, sleep had never felt further away as his mind started to pick apart the situation. The highs and the lows of Michael’s days and how they seemed to dovetail to when he was with Alex. The peaks and the valleys with his powers and strength, they also could be plotted against the amount of contact they had shared. 

It was starting to make a sick sort of sense to Alex now, as he swallowed the rising bile and stared sightlessly up at the ceiling. This whole time his precautions had been pointless. He had stripped his house clean and cut holes in the air filters for testing, he had made a point of staying in hotel rooms, and none of it made a difference, because it wasn’t Alex’s house that had been salted with poison.

It had to be Alex himself.


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning, Alex was seated at the bland hotel desk with a pad of paper in hand when Michael awoke, jotting down his observations in a linear format. Once his mind had made the tenuous connection to Michael’s illness, Alex had given up sleep as a lost cause in favor of planning and had carefully rolled away from Michael’s hold.

Scratched out in columns were words like ‘no contact’, ‘casual contact- hug or touch’, ‘close contact - kiss’ and finally ‘intimate contact- sex’. Running down the page was a listing of Michael’s symptoms, fatigue, loss of powers, nose bleeds, thinning hair, and pain. Following every intimate contact, Michael had experienced each of the symptoms in ever worsening severity. Alex was less sure about close or casual contact, if the effect was the same or worse, but the connection between no contact and Michael having a good day was hard to ignore.

“That doesn’t look like a crossword,” Michael observed, his head propped up by his hand as he laid on the bed. Though the color in his face was a shade lighter than Alex liked, he still was a temptation personified on the white hotel sheets. Dark hair shading down his chest, disappearing under the blanket draped across his hips and though thinner and wispier, his curls were still wild on his head. 

“How’d you sleep?” Alex kept scribbling, noting that there wasn’t a nosebleed this morning. Perhaps because no one orgasmed last night, a fluid exchange? He checked off the fatigue and loss of powers though as symptoms observed.

“Are you asking as my boyfriend or somethin’ else?”

Clearly, although he was tired, Michael’s sharp eyes hadn’t missed anything. Alex placed the cheap pen down and folded up the section of hotel stationary to tuck into his pocket before turning to face Michael directly. “I’m asking as someone who loves you.”

As predicted, Michael brightened at the mention of ‘love’. That was a mutually shared Achilles heel for them. He licked his lips in response, “Oh a sweet talker, I’ll take it. I slept fine, sweetheart and I feel okay this morning.” He patted the space on the bed with an inviting hand, “If you come over here, I can show you how ‘okay’ I feel and maybe I can redeem myself from last night-”

Alex smiled wanly at the offer, and gestured down toward his already-in-place uniform. “Two things, I have to get work, and two, there’s nothing to redeem, not for me.”

“Can’t call in sick again?”

“‘Fraid not. What about you? You’re usually up before me-”

“Babe, it’s six a.m. I don’t have to be at the garage until eight, and you usually don’t have to be on base until nine.” Michael replied, gesturing to the clock radio on the nightstand. “So perhaps I should be asking you how you slept. Did you sleep at all?”

“Sleep and I have never been friends, at least not on a long term basis.” Alex got to his feet smoothly, knowing the longer he stayed here under Michael’s perceptive gaze, the greater the chance he would break. The suspicion that he was at the root of all of this, as ugly and as dark as it was, could still be groundless. Thirty years had formed some hard-to-break habits, including the instinct to pull inside, behind that strong cage of bones surrounding his heart, every perceived vulnerability, so he could protect others from himself. 

His overnight bag was already packed and at the door. Alex moved toward the nightstand and closer to Michael, still laying in bed, to pick up his keys. “Take as long as you like, the room is paid for until ten.”

“You didn’t extend it? I mean, don’t get me wrong, the little shampoo bottles are great, but-” Michael paused, frowning lightly as he studied Alex’s still and closed off face. “Does this mean you’re over the paranoia about your house killing me and we can go back to sleeping there?”

“Yeah, something like that.” Alex placed his hand on the door knob to leave, turning the knob. “I’ll call you tonight okay?”

“Hold up,” Michael threw back the covers, leaving himself gloriously bare and rolled off the edge of the bed to stand up. 

Even though his instincts urged him to leave, Alex kept the door closed as Michael stalked toward him. He found himself holding his breath as Michael stopped, inches away from him. What if the poison was in his lungs as he expelled it? His heart started to pound from how close Michael was to him. Normally he could trace this back to arousal, to anticipation, but for the first time ever, there was fear behind it. 

“Were you really going to leave without kissing me goodbye?” Michael tilted his head to the side, a half-smile sat crooked on his mouth with an old insecurity tipping it downward from a playful pout. 

Alex forced himself to smile, “No, of course not.” He forced his feet, one metal and one flesh, to step forward with the same confidence he once used in the tall, shadowed walls in the Salahuddin of Iraq. The threat wasn’t internal back then. Bending closer to Michael with effort, he pressed a soft, closed-mouth kiss against Michael’s lips. “Now, I am going to be late, and I don’t really want to give housekeeping a show-”

Although Michael looked like he wanted to protest further, he obediently picked up his discarded jeans from the floor of the room. He stepped into them gracefully, pulling them up around his hips, but bare without underwear. “Alright, let me know how your day is going and what you want to do tonight for dinner.”

Feeling sick with guilt, Alex managed a nod in agreement, before turning the handle of the heavy metal door. The weight was solid in his hand, substantial and grounding, as he stepped outside into the quiet corridor. The solid slam against the jam echoed against the concrete hallway. The lights of the security lock blinked red as it re-armed on his exit. It wasn’t an omen of the future, he decided firmly. It couldn’t be.

*** 

“So let me get this straight, you have almost 56 hours of missing time, right before Guerin started feeling ill, and you didn’t think it was relevant to tell me this?” Charlie questioned, as she held out her hand to take the cup of coffee from the barista at ‘Bean Me Up’. She shook her head at Alex, “I did two deployments with the Army, so understand me when I say ‘that’s the dumbest thing I have ever heard’, I really mean it. I have experienced a great deal of stupidity in my life.”

Alex dropped a ten dollar bill on the counter, waving off the change, and claimed his own cup as he followed her out of the café. His meeting on base had wrapped up early, allowing him to take a long lunch break to check in at the hospital and share his suspicions. Kyle was in the middle of rounds, but Charlie was there, carefully examining the differences between Max’s slides and Michael’s. 

“Kyle knew; if he didn’t tell you, well-”

“Doctor Valenti, despite his own felonious actions at the hospital in securing that lab, doesn’t see past my dishonorable discharge and my ethical violations. We’re working together, but it’s not a relationship built on trust, just necessity.” Charlie commented lightly, seemingly unaffected. “It’s fine, I’m used to people only seeing the surface.”

He fell into step with her, feeling a tinge of sympathy for what she had gone through, not just in her struggle to do the right thing in the face of the government, but personally. He knew a little bit about being in a situation and having only the best intentions, but it still had ended in widespread disaster. Alex pulled out his folded sheet of notes, tucking his own feelings down deep, “Look at this and tell me I’m wrong.”

She took a long sip of her coffee, pulling the paper from his grasp to read. Abruptly Charlie stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, her eyes widening, before tossing her half-full cup into the trash and wrapping her free hand around his uniformed arm to steer him back toward the hospital, “I hope you don’t mind needles.”

Except it didn’t stop at needles. 

Alex unbuttoned his uniform shirt readily, letting her draw vial after vial of blood from his arm without protest. He obediently opened his mouth, after the blood draw was complete as she moved into her next group of samples to gather. Staying silent as she swabbed the inside of his mouth, collecting saliva and cheek cells. Dipping his head down, he remained stock still as she combed through his hair, gathering hair. The special sandpaper she used next, rubbed vigorously against his forearm brought the bloom of blood to the surface of his skin but otherwise was a tolerable means of gathering cells and sweat residue.

Then Charlie placed two small sealed cups on the table. “So I’m going to need two more samples, urine and semen. There’s a bathroom around the corner, take your time but try not to touch the inside of the container. Um, if you need materials, I think Isobel left a copy of some magazine here the last time she stopped by to hang out.”

His world post-IED meant that very little embarrassed him when it came to medical tests. The experience during those dark weeks post-amputation when he was little more than an immobilized bag of flesh, blood and pain laid out on a hospital bed, completely dependent on nurses for everything. The days had been broken up by refreshed morphine drips and periodic trips back to the operating table as the surgeons had worked to clean up and stitch together what was left of him after what the IED had done. 

This was nothing close to that level of past humiliation in Alex’s opinion but that sentiment wasn’t shared by Charlie. Her cheeks were pink as she looked pointedly away from him and gestured vaguely toward the door out.

Alex picked up the magazine mentioned, tossed on a chair nearby, “I’ve never jerked off to Architectural Digest, so this will be a first.”

Charlie rolled her eyes, cracking a smile past her discomfort. “Maybe you might learn something about yourself then, like your taste in tile backsplashes or crown molding.”

He filled both sample cups in the bathroom. One was predictably more difficult than the other, nearly every fantasy since he was 17 had involved Michael and now his brain couldn’t help but signal danger to him when he pictured touching Michael. Alex stared at his reflection in the mirror as he washed his hands, before dropping his gaze down to his palms. 

It was morbid, but he felt the bubble of laughter beating hummingbird-fast in his throat as he realized that there was a chance his father was right about him after all. An abomination.

Fuck. Alex really needed this test to prove his hunch wrong. 

When Alex reentered the lab, to his dismay he found Isobel Evans had arrived during the interval. She was perched on the lab table, leaning closer to Charlie. The way she tossed her hair over her shoulder gave Alex the impression that he had interrupted something. Flirting? The expression, whatever it was, quickly disappeared before he could fully examine it. Instead, her perfectly shaped brows lifted into surprise and then bridged in suspicion as she took in the sample cups he was carrying. 

Carefully he skirted her presence out of caution, which only increased the curiosity in her eyes. As he placed both samples within Charlie’s reach, he thought perhaps he could feel the brush of Isobel’s mind against his for answers. Except she wouldn’t. Right?

“Well, well, well,” Isobel purred, before pushing off the counter. “What’s going on here?” 

Without looking at Alex, Charlie replied absently, “Don’t go near him, he might be the source of what is making your - pod mate? Alien egg buddy? Whatever, he could be what is making Guerin sick.” Then, as if she hadn’t just dropped a verbal bomb on Isobel, Charlie started preparing slides for Alex’s previously submitted samples. 

“Brother, I consider Michael my brother.” 

“But it’s not genetic-”

“My cells are closer to his than yours, so he’s my brother-”

“Interesting,” Charlie commented, not offended at all by the sharpness in Isobel’s voice, and picked up her pen to scribble a few notes. “You know, animal species avoid close interbreeding and incest if raised together in the same environment, but if siblings are fostered elsewhere, that convention disappears. Do you think your aversion wanting to have sex with him, even though he is your same species, is founded in that mental adoption of him as a sibling?”

Alex quite enjoyed the look of disgust on Isobel’s face at Charlie’s suggestion, it reminded him of the looks traded between Isobel and Michael after Forrest had suggested something similar. “You know what, that sounds like a fascinating subject, but I should get back to base-”

Before he could make it to the outside door and freedom, Isobel stepped in front of him. “Not so fast, Manes. Let’s back up a step, you think you’re what’s making Michael sick?”

Backing up a step from Isobel, literally, Alex considered his options quickly and then sighed in defeat. He would need Isobel on his side when the time came to tell Michael everything.

*** 

“You know what this means.”

“I do.”

“If you’re sure about this-”

“I am.”

“He’s going to flip out.”

“I know.”

Isobel’s eyes sparked in frustration at Alex’s two word answers. Her full expression was hidden behind the face mask that Charlie pressed on her halfway through Alex’s long explanation of his suspicions and the conclusions he had drawn from them. The first tests had almost immediately confirmed what Alex had feared. The introduction of his biological material to a sample of Michael’s had triggered a cascading sequence of cellular death.

Charlie had watched his face go absolutely white at seeing the preliminary results, and had tried to reassure him that the slide looked far more dramatic than reality. That every day almost 50 million cells died, all going completely according to the life cycle of birth and death. The anomaly, of course, was there was something both encouraging this and also inhibiting new cell growth within Michael’s slides.

That ‘something’ was still undefined but at least could be localized to Alex. He looked down at his hands, now encased in thin latex gloves for protection. Big, long fingered with a wide flex, his hands were perfect for holding a guitar or as he later learned, supporting a M4 carbine in 110 degree temperatures abroad. While the memories of his mother were faint, he still knew that he had inherited these hands from Jesse. His skin, a shade or two darker than Jesse’s, but the same hands, capable of anything. 

Still capable of harming Michael it appeared, regardless of Alex’s intention. 

“You’re absolutely sure Flint is in Germany?” 

That was Max, who had joined them in the hospital lab straight from a shift at the Wild Pony with Maria in tow. She had taken one look at Alex’s face on arrival and had tried to sweep him into one of her patented long full-body Deluca hugs. It had hurt, deep inside his heart, to dodge her physical affection. The shock on her face when he did that would haunt him for a while. And that was just how it felt to avoid his best friend, how the hell was he going to avoid touching Michael?

“It’s not Flint,” Alex answered dully, picking at the knee of his uniform pants. “I have kept an eye on him.”

“Well, who else would use you to get to Michael?” Max demanded. “I may not be a cop anymore, but this seems to me like a pretty personal attack. Someone who knew your home and knows what Michael would do if you were attacked-”

“It’s not Flint!” Alex cut him off sharply. He bristled at the inference Max made, that he didn’t have the situation with his brother under control. Some of this reaction from Max was misplaced shame turning into anger, over how he had nearly killed Alex’s brother at Crashcon. Unfortunately Alex was no stranger to how shame could burrow deep, the seed taking root and blooming into anger at times, instead of flowering in self-reflection and accountability. The rest of the posturing from Max came from the same place of helpless frustration that Alex had; someone had harmed Michael on 'his watch.'.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he continued in a more diplomatic tone, “But it could be someone he worked with before. I never did get to the bottom of Deep Sky, and there are still levels at Area 51 that I’m locked out of - even Isobel confirmed that with the MPs when we were cleaning up after Mr. Jones.”

“Plus, it’s not like Flint is your only brother,” Maria offered quietly. 

“It’s not Greg. He’s a school teacher-”

“No, not Greg,” Maria agreed. “But have you talked to Clay lately? Flint always followed your dad like an obedient little soldier, but from what I remember of Clay, he was always trying to be better than your dad.”

“As fun as it is to guess which member of the murderous Manes family is behind this,” Isobel drawled, not even the thin cotton mask could hold back her sarcasm, “isn’t it more important to figure out what they did so we can reverse it? Also, who is going to tell Michael?”

“Not it,” Max muttered firmly. “He won’t take the news well from me. And it shouldn’t be Alex either, since he’s literally toxic at the moment, no offense-”

“Wait a second-” Alex protested in complete offense.

“Jesus, Max, tone down your protective instincts for a moment and have a little delicacy,” Isobel cut in before the lock on the lab door turned, swinging open with Rosa’s voice carrying easily, “You couldn’t have at least had a meal at home with Papi first, instead of running straight here?”

Max jumped to his feet and quickly pulled off his mask, even though Isobel swatted at him in reproof for his recklessness. The nervous rake of his fingers through his hair would have made Alex smirk in satisfaction in a less stressful time. A time when he could find some measure of charitable thoughts toward Michael’s brother. Certainly not today. Still, Alex wasn’t sure who was more relieved, him or Max, to see Liz Ortecho walk through the door, her hair chopped short but dressed for the lab already in a white coat. 

“Papi understands, I told him that Alex and Michael needed me,” Liz replied quietly to Rosa as she took in the whole room. Her dark eyes moved from Charlie, hunched near the microscope, then focused briefly on Isobel and Maria, lingering longer on Alex with concern, before locking onto Max’s still form. “Hi.”

“You um, you made it,” Max rubbed his hand over the back of his head, before making a wide path around Alex toward her. His arms made an awkward stutter as she mirrored the same instinct, before Max gave up any attempt at playing the situation coolly and leaned down to hug her tightly. “Thanks for coming.”

“Of course, I came.” Liz rubbed her hands together, in preparation for diving into the work. “So what did I miss?”

“Someone performed a secret illegal medical experiment on Alex, and for once, it wasn’t anyone in this room.” Isobel replied sardonically, before standing up. Liz’s smile dimmed slightly as Max looked away uncomfortably at the reminder of what had happened with Stef. “I’ll let you get caught up by everyone. I need to go check on Michael, and let him know the latest sad chapter of his life.” She paused on the way out to meet Alex’s eyes, “Until we know how bad this is, it might be best if you stay away from him. Neither of you are known for your self-control around each other.”

*** 

Once Liz made a cursory review of Charlie’s results and Alex’s observations, it was clear by the drawn look on her face that his very presence in the same room as Max was distracting her. Before she could ask, Alex read the temperature of the room and made an excuse to leave. 

The drive home from the hospital barely registered on Alex’s awareness, he was too busy trying to imagine how Isobel was breaking the information to Michael at Sanders. His limited interactions with her since Michael had moved in as a defacto protector gave him some sliver of hope that she was cushioning the news. From day 1, Isobel Evans had made it clear she only cared about Michael’s happiness, regardless of who he was with at the time. She was only on his team as long as Alex was bringing a smile to her brother and not tears.

The quietly critical voice was back, reminding Alex that it was cowardice to leave this to Isobel. When had indirect communication bought them anything other than heartache over the years? Michael getting locked up before he left for Basic Training, the way he had left after seeing Michael’s ship. The way Michael had left that night of the storm and Noah’s death. A guitar with a post-it note. Alex could name a thousand more instances where if he had just stayed, or Michael had, maybe it wouldn’t have taken almost twelve years to find their way back together.

Now there was an immovable object between them. His very essence was on some level killing Michael and the only cure to be found was distance between them. Alex could fully appreciate the term “bitterly ironic” now.

It was almost comical, but he should have anticipated that he would find Michael’s classic Chevy parked in his driveway, regardless of how the conversation had gone with Isobel. A stronger, wiser man would have made a U-turn and left, but he knew Michael, he would just follow Alex stubbornly. As soon as Alex parked, Michael was instantly out of his truck, that ubiquitous black cowboy hat on his head. 

Alex stepped back from Michael from his SUV, leaving at least six feet of space between them. The front door of the house was closed with a new alarm code installed in the aftermath of his suspicions. “You shouldn’t be here, didn’t Isobel tell you what’s going on?” 

“She did,” Michael admitted, and although he didn’t back away from Alex, he also didn’t step closer. “I was a little surprised to hear it from her first. I would have thought you might have come to me.”

“I didn’t-” Alex began before his throat closed on the rest of the words. “I was hoping I was wrong.”

Michael moved slowly around Alex, until Alex’s front door wasn’t behind him anymore. The careful maneuver by Michael, to keep Alex from being cut off from his own home warmed the fragile surroundings of his heart. “But you weren’t wrong.”

“No, I wasn’t.” Alex echoed softly in acknowledgement. “The preliminary tests confirm that whatever is causing your fatigue and power loss, it originates in me.” 

“I feel fine right now, you know that right?” 

“That’s because as soon as you fell asleep last night, I moved away from you. We haven’t been in close contact for over 12 hours, Michael.” Alex fiddled with his keys, trying to avoid Michael’s gaze. His resolve never weathered those dark eyes well. “Until we figure out what happened to me, until we can reverse it, it’s probably best if you go home tonight.”

He swept off his hat restlessly at Alex’s suggestion, his jaw clenching in anger as Michael visibly bit back his words. Long moments passed with only the night song of the cicadas ringing in the air between them. The veil between the past and the present was gossamer thin between them. How many times had Alex shut down and sent Michael away, for reasons that were paltry in hindsight? Of course, now when it mattered, he had a new front in this war to fight upon. 

“Home,” Michael echoed. He turned toward the house, his arm raising to encompass the whole view, from the fairy lights in the trees to the ridiculous dried chili peppers strung along the entryway that swayed in the gentle breeze to the security system mounted next to the front door. “You want me to go home, and I kinda thought this was home? I mean, that’s what these last few weeks were about, right? Was I wrong?”

“You weren’t wrong,” Alex swallowed hard, the useless wrong words sticking to his throat. “But we can’t ignore the other part of these past few weeks, okay? I’m hurting you, just being around me is actively hurting you-”

“And what do you think happens to me when we’re apart?”

“I don’t want to fight over a metaphor, Michael. We’re talking about actual cellular death, okay?” 

Michael smiled humorlessly, “That’s the thing, I’m not talkin’ about a metaphor right now either. You wanted to know who I was, what I am, and I’m tellin’ you, there isn’t a line inside me, between my cells shutting off and my feelings for you. It all feels the same to me.” He twirled his hat on his fingertips for a moment, before resetting it firmly on his head. “But if you want to push me away again, because things are hard-”

“God, you are such an asshole sometimes,” Alex shook his head, wonderingly. “This isn’t like before, okay? I’m trying to protect you.”

“No? That’s funny, because you have said exactly that to me before.” For the first time, Michael took a step closer, narrowing that invisible six foot barrier between them. “You left Roswell to win battles, remember? To protect me from your dad. He was going to kill us both, as I recall, so sorry if this is feeling a little too familiar to me. You're telling me to go because it’s for my own good.”

“What would you have me do then?” 

Alex held his breath as Michael considered that question. Eleven or twelve years ago, it had been impossible to consider an alternative. Alex couldn’t stay in a town too full of his dad and Michael wouldn’t have left Isobel after high school, even though he didn’t fully understand why for over ten years. 

“Back then or right now?” Michael stepped closer before stopping as he caught the backward sway that Alex made reflexively. “I would have you do the same thing, believe it or not. That you actually ask me what I want. I don’t know if it would have changed anything back then, and to be honest, you and I don’t do real well when we’re livin’ in the past. But right now, we should be trying to figure this out together, but instead, you want to fight this all on your own. So I guess I’ll let you do that.” 

This time when Michael moved, it was away from Alex, turning his back finally on the house to walk toward his truck. His boots made a too-loud striking sound on the driveway to Alex’s ears. Fuck. His mouth was dry and his tongue felt useless, because it wasn’t like Michael was wrong. Forget the thin veil to the past, it appeared he had been fully transported back there tonight. 

He heard the rough metal whine of the truck door open, before it slammed, rifle-loud.

It registered after a moment that the truck was still silent. Alex refocused, aware that he had checked out briefly, and saw that Michael was leaning against the cab. His shoulders were shaking as he braced his palms on the closed door. 

“Michael!” Alex moved then, breaking free of the stalemate. Test results be damned, he couldn’t stand by helplessly and not try to help. As he drew closer, he realized the hiccuping sounds coming from him wasn’t Michael crying, but he was laughing instead. Broken, bleak laughter. 

He pushed away from his truck as Alex drew closer, striding toward him as he wiped roughly at his face in between huffs for air. “You’re absolutely right, I’m an asshole. Here I am, shooting my mouth off about how you’re givin’ me a perfect rendition of Alex Manes benevolent dictator, and I’m doin’ the same damn thing I have always done. I’m fucking letting you call all the shots again, walkin’ away too.”

“I do want to figure this out together and I don’t want you to leave,” Alex offered, extending an olive branch in the quiet night air. At least this time he could see the mines that surrounded them both, the triggers protruding up between their words, so ugly and obvious. “I just don’t know what that looks like.”

“I don’t either, but I’m tired of walking away, I’m tired of thinkin’ I feel your hand on my back pushing me in that direction. We’ve done it that way for far too long, okay?” Michael reached out, carefully placing his hand on Alex’s clothed shoulder. “Remember when I said that first night that you could argue with me, but I wasn’t goin’ anywhere?”

Following that memory Alex argued, “You’re not sleeping in your truck.”

“No, and I’m not sleeping in the bed with you either apparently, but how about the couch?” This time it was Michael extending his own peace offering. “We don’t touch, but we keep talkin’, since it’s clear we have some more things to work out between us. Then once the collective brain trust, and I include myself in that, are able to fix what was done to you, we can try this again, on more solid ground.”

Alex smiled weakly, the skepticism that they could both control themselves, battling it out with his always present desire to have Michael within his sight. “You really think we can keep our hands to ourselves?” He paused, realizing what he had said, before laughing in embarrassment, “Okay, that sounded dirtier aloud than it did in my head-”

“See, that’s the type of problem solvin’ I like. But yeah, why not? I believe in us. And this is just temporary.” 


	7. Chapter 7

“So what do you want first, the good news or the bad news?”

Michael made a sound that somewhat resembled a laugh, if it had been dipped in battered pessimism and rolled in powdered hopelessness first. He crossed his arms in front of Liz, his shoulders and biceps peeking out from his white tank top. From across the room, it made for a highly distracting sight for Alex. It didn’t escape Alex’s attention that since it became necessary to maintain space between them, Michael’s wardrobe had been reduced to barely three buttons fastened and as much skin exposed as possible.

To be fair, that was hardly a change from how Michael usually dressed, it just felt more targetted to Alex these days. 

There was an unsaid expectation, that once Liz started working on the problem, then a solution would be just a matter of days. It was perhaps unrealistic, but that was the type of optimism Alex needed to hold onto with both hands. It was especially needed on days when he was skirting Michael in the house, freshly out of a shower wearing just a wrapped towel or during the days when Michael wore paper thin white t-shirts that scarcely hid the darkened skin of his nipples. Or just more generally days ending with Y and sharing his house with him.

It had been a long two weeks.

“Good news, please, I could use the change.”

“Well, as I suspected, it’s not airborne. Your cells have shown no signs of abnormal death or degradation since you stopped, um,-”

“Since Alex and I stopped fucking like rabbits and have instead, become platonic bros,” Michael finished for her as Liz trailed off, looking for a more polite way to describe the ceased physical affections. 

“Right.” Liz smirked, before moving away from her microscope to beckon him over. “I have the slides from the samples that Kyle first took, up against the samples from yesterday. You can see for yourself.”

Michael obediently bent his head down to look, his mouth stretching into a smile as he examined the results. “Wow, that is good news.”

“Right, your body has effectively erased all the previous damage, with the precautions you’ve taken.” Liz looked over at Alex, standing carefully apart from the both. “I was worried the effects would continue even after the removal of exposure, perhaps to the point of needing to put you back in your pod. That’s how it works with most heavy metal poisonings with humans.”

“Great, glad that wearing gloves in my own house and never coming within two feet of Michael has paid off,” Alex replied, unable to stop the bitterness from breaking through his voice. “The only good news we have had so far is that we can share the same air safely, but nothing else.”

“Hey,” Michael looked up from the microscope. “That _was_ good news, no more masks, because I missed seeing your face.”

“Well I miss everything about you.” Alex forced himself to smile in return, before sighing. “Sorry, you’re right. And it’s good to know that you’re okay now. That is a relief.”

“Right,” Michael moved away from Liz’s workstation to pick up the list of notes. “So where are we on figuring out how they did this in the first place, and what they actually did to Alex to make it possible?”

“That’s where the bad news comes in,” Liz replied, her eyes darting quickly away from Alex as he straightened up in reaction. “At first I thought it was some sort of virus, similar to the pathogen that Charlie developed. The way your cells were attacked, like the destruction of T-cells and red blood cells production, just screamed retrovirus to me. Except, there’s not much of a replication going on in your cells, Michael, which is just weird.”

“That is weird,” Michael repeated, his eyes drawn to the scattered paper. “No replication is why my cells healed when I stopped kissing Alex, because, what- the retrovirus replicates only in his cells?”

Liz shrugged, unable to explain it further. “It’s not like any retrovirus I’ve ever seen. But Charlie did some work on cytochrome P450 enzymes being altered through a delivery of a chemical weapon, some really dark shit that piggy-backed off of the research behind designing genetically-unique chemotherapy protocols to cure cancer. Regardless, the project she consulted on talked about taking an already-present enzyme reaction needed for life and turning it into something else. Either allowing waste products to accumulate in the body like a poison reaction or like targeting oxygen in the bloodstream to bring about targeted hypoxia in genetically similar populations.”

“Wait, I’m following like, every other word here- what are you saying, Liz?” Alex spoke up after both Michael and Liz dropped into despondent silence.

“I’ve looked at all of the samples Charlie took from you, Alex, from skin to sweat and everything in between. It’s actually similar to what I did with Stef, I rewrote the instructions to her cells to act in the same manner as the alien cells when it came to regeneration, cell death, and repair. It was a synthetic nucleotide excision repair.” She stopped, seeing that Alex still wasn’t following the technical explanation at all. “They changed your DNA basically. Your cells contain this retrovirus that has instructed them to shed a type of enzyme. That enzyme, it has a new purpose in Michael’s cells. It’s turning off the natural defenses in Michael. Attacking, my guess, the phosphorus meld of organic tech that makes up Michael’s organs.”

“Great, how do we change it back?” 

Both Liz and Michael exchanged long glances, a heavy weight of dread settled inside of Alex, before Michael answered slowly, “You can’t really kill a retrovirus without killing the cell itself. Adding a process to a DNA strand is a whole lot easier than removing one. For starters, we would need a sample of ‘before’, be able to map that profile completely, before we could even begin to find the alteration.”

Liz picked up the explanation gently, “Ten years ago, it was unheard of, but it’s become more common to completely map an individual’s genome and it doesn’t take long now. Our problem is it takes equipment this hospital doesn’t have. But Genoryx does.”

“That’s kind of a huge risk to put this sort of thing on their radar,” Alex observed. It hit every single instinct he had about proprietary information and black ops weapons development to walk into the Los Angeles lab as apparently a living alien weapon. There were too many lingering unanswered questions about their ability to perform fast-tracked biomedical research without the oversight to consider the risk worth taking.

“I also might have taken an unexpected, unapproved, leave of absence to come back to Roswell in the first place. Walking back in and gaining access to that equipment might not be possible.” Liz sighed, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. “Honestly, if I could get my hands on the original designs, and what they used to do this to you, Alex, I could probably come up with something that targets the change in your cells. I’m just reluctant to start mucking around with your genetic code without more information. Anything we do could kill you.”

“Right, well that’s not happening,” Michael stated firmly. “We’ll just keep working on it. I hate to encourage this since you just got my brother Max to smile again, but maybe you should resurrect your project that cured Stef.”

“It will be a short-lived smile then because Max is not going to love that,” Liz rolled her eyes. 

“Max can suck it,” Michael said, seriously. “You’re saving me, saving my sanity if you fix what they did to Alex, because seriously this no-touch thing is driving me crazy-”

“Aww, poor Mikey!”

As Michael and Liz playfully bickered in the background, Alex scrolled through his phone, hovering over the string of unanswered messages sent to his brother Clay. A brief five minute conversation at Jesse’s graveside, just after his father had been buried, had been the extent of his contact with his oldest brother. Flint had been the one to summon Clay home after Crashcon. Seeing his father’s imposing closed features splashed so prominently across the face of his brother as an adult had taken Alex aback, particularly in the statue Clay cut in his full Army service dress uniform. He had claimed to be in the reserves, working as a civilian contractor, but the bland, unidentifying details spoke more to a special operations assignment to Alex.

The private investigator he had hired shortly after learning what had happened to him during his abduction had also turned up no leads on his brother’s whereabouts. 

It was probably time to call his mother again. 

*** 

“You don’t have to keep sleeping here,” Alex said, as he watched Michael spread blankets out over the couch again. 

Sharply Michael looked up, his eyes wary at the remark. “We’ve been over this-”

“Sorry, I mean, why don’t we move the couch into the bedroom?” There was another suggestion in his thoughts, about perhaps downgrading the large king-sized bed in his room for two doubles, if they were going to continue to share the house like platonic roommates. Just fully embrace the sex-less 1950s relationship that they were sharing. 

“Now that is a good idea.” Michael brightened, before stepping gracefully around Alex to head back toward the bedroom, presumably to check the space requirements needed. The careful bubble of space that Michael left between them still made Alex itch with longing, but he was getting better at controlling the urge to simply step into Michael’s path in hopes of a bodily collision. 

Every day of his almost thirty years alive had required some measure of self-control and self-possession, from keeping his eyes carefully away from staring too long at boys growing up, to keeping his mouth shut in the face of various poor leaders in the Air Force, this was just a different test of the same rigid control. It was made easier to see Michael using his telekinesis effortlessly as he floated the couch down the hall around the tables without a waver, to see the payoff from his restraint.

Alex followed him to their destination, using his crutches to skillfully swing and hop down the hallway toward the bedroom. By the time he was sitting down on his bed, stowing them next to the bedside table, Michael was already down to his briefs and was slipping under the sheets. 

The height of the couch was at least similar to the bed. Alex had long ago had the bed frame adjusted and shortened for ease in getting in and out of bed for mobility reasons. It wasn’t quite the same as having Michael laying next to him, but facing him with a few feet of bedroom floor between them was better than nothing at all. 

“This is nice,” Michael said softly, mirroring Alex’s thoughts aloud. “Not sure why we didn’t do this sooner.”

“Maybe because we thought this wasn’t going to last so long.”

“It’s been what, a couple of weeks? You know when you really think about it historically, we’ve been on separate continents for much longer stretches of time than this.” 

Alex pursed his lips and nodded, conceding the point to Michael. The words ‘we’ve always been apart longer than we’ve been together- I’m tired of it- it isn’t fair- stop being reasonable about it’ clawed up his throat, threatening to spring forth like a loosed wild animal, but one look at how hard Michael was trying for normality, and the lump vanished. He instead turned his attention to his nightly routine of physical therapy stretches and working the vitamin E oil over the patchwork of surgical scars that wrapped around the end of his stump. 

He heard the creak of the couch springs, as Michael sat up, and Alex glanced over to find him watching his ministrations closely. Alex dropped his head back down to concentrate on finishing the care on his leg. There was a whisper of movement, and then suddenly Michael’s hand, now gloved in blue latex, covered his hand to still the massage. Alex inhaled, protesting, “You shouldn’t-”

“Alex, please, let me do this.” Michael was careful, only touching Alex with his hands completely covered but it was still enough to increase Alex’s pulse in a mix of alarm and arousal. “Just close your eyes and relax. Pretend we can still have a bit of normalcy here.”

It did feel good to have Michael’s hands on him once again. 

The shine of the oil was probably not good for the latex, but at least it provided something of a barrier between his skin cells and Michael’s. Closing his eyes, he could almost find that moment of before, of how easily his body yielded under Michael’s strong, clever hands, as long as he tuned out the feel of the gloves. His mind clicked over to the last time someone had done this for him wearing gloves, handled his leg, and he could only picture a doctor suddenly. Michael’s skin was normally rough and calloused, feeling only the smooth artificial layer between them felt like one more thing being taken away from Alex.

Michael paused, feeling the renewed tension under his hands from Alex. “Hey, I’m not, I’m not hurting you, am I?”

“No, it’s good, it’s-” Alex blinked a few times, trying to clear the sudden wave of self-pity away. He had gotten out of the habit of telling himself that he was full after a feast of crumbs. “It’s fine. I just miss kissing you.”

After a searching look, Michael nodded in agreement. “I miss that too.” He slowly peeled off the gloves to dispose of and reluctantly backed away from Alex to return to the bedding on the couch. Clicking off the lamp draped the room in shadow, letting only the shadows from the security lights leak through the blinds. It blunted the edges of reality to the point where Alex could tell himself that the noises Michael made with sheet rustling were right next to him. Not across the room. 

The bottle of Prazosin was still within reach, in case Alex’s old foe of insomnia came calling at least. The prescription that was meant to last three months, was already half-empty from the recent stress. He probably should call his doctor, see if he could get an early renewal. It wasn’t like this was getting solved tomorrow. That was the lingering thought that wouldn’t leave, the circling, squirming knot of worry inside. There was no end in sight.

Exhaustive searches of the footage from his home security camera had yielded no further answers, but a chance encounter with his neighbor across the street had revealed the first confirmation that it wasn’t just paranoia that pointed to his family’s involvement. His neighbor’s porch surveillance system had captured a still image of a dark Suburban parked on the street in front of Alex’s house and after running down the three visible plate numbers with Jenna Cameron, he had traced the owner to one Clayton James Manes.

It was cold comfort to clear his brother Flint definitively, only to shift the focus onto another brother. The legacy of Manes men wasn’t quite as finished as his father had pronounced on his deathbed. Knowing it was probably Clay behind it, of course still didn’t solve the problem of finding him. It was becoming more and more clear that without having access to the original experiment, more importantly, the equipment that had been used to alter his DNA, he could be stuck like this for good. Liz was convinced that it could have only been accomplished with alien-derived technology in the first place. Tech that had been savaged from the crash site and then tested over 70 years at Caulfield.

Hope was chiseled away, bit by bit. Each day, he left work to stop in at the hospital, only to see either Charlie or Liz shake their head in defeat. Kyle had been straight to the point with Alex earlier that day, “Right now, we have a treatment that will strip away that retrovirus, but it will probably kill you. We have to weigh that against the fact right now, this thing is only cramping your relationship with Guerin. So just weigh the risk, death by blue balls or just plain old death.” He had made a see-saw movement with his hands in front of Alex with an apologetic smile. “Obviously we’re going to keep trying.” 

Keep trying, keep going, keep being patient. Historically those were things he wasn’t good at.

“Can I say something? And I want you to know that I’m trying not to project my worst fears on this-” Alex began quietly in the dark, testing to see where Michael was on this subject.

“You’re wondering what we’re going to do if there’s no cure,” Michael answered, his voice even and gentle. There was a squeak of a couch spring as he shifted onto his back to face the ceiling, before he sighed. “I’m trying not to think about that.” 

“I think we should. Think about it and talk about what’s going to happen with us if this turns out to be permanent?” Just voicing that aloud made Alex’s heart thump painfully in his chest. 

“Nothin’ is going to happen to us, okay? We’ll just figure something else out.” 

The platitude did little to calm Alex, as a fresh wave of frustration rose in his veins. “Figure something else out? Listen, if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. Just say that, okay? Because I can’t handle any more empty assurances right now, not after the day I had.” As soon as he snapped at Michael, he felt the rush of shame wash over. He knew he wasn’t alone in this, he knew it, and yet he couldn’t help but fall into these bad habits of attacking. 

Michael was silent for a while, before he cleared his throat. “You talked to your mom, didn’t you?”

Alex squeezed his eyes shut tightly, undone by the care in Michael’s voice and just how well he had sussed out the true reason behind things. “I did.”

“Didn’t go well then?” He made a soft, scoffing sound under his breath, a nearly inaudible ‘idiot’ before Michael continued with a stronger voice, “Sorry, I think this is where I say if you don’t want to talk about her, you don’t have to. I mean, only if it’s hard for you. Cause if you’re holding back on talking about her because of me, you don’t have to.” 

“It’s fine,” Alex replied, the rote response to anyone who edged around the subject of the absent Mindy Manes. This was Michael, though, trying and wanting to know more about him. Connecting with words when they couldn’t do the same physically. And was it any different from the lengths Alex had gone to interrogate Walt Sanders about his memories of Nora? Licking his lips, he looked across the dark bedroom to find the shine of Michael’s eyes on him, “I know I don’t talk about her much, I mean, my dad has always been the elephant in every room.”

“Yeah, your dad leaves an impression,” Michael said wryly. “Hope he’s entertaining Satan right now, sitting on a hot poker.”

“Without a doubt, there’s gotta be some justice,” Alex smiled in confirmation before returning to the original subject. “She left when I was about eight, and I know that he only let her go because she didn’t fight him for custody of us. I don’t blame her, I mean, she does that enough for the both of us. And I’ve done things, taken pretty drastic steps myself, that hurt people, just to be free from him too. But every conversation we have comes back to that original sin with her, where I have to reassure her that I don’t hate her, that she suffered just as much…” He trailed off, before exhaling harshly, pushing the air forcefully from his lungs in an attempt to let go of the tension that always built up thinking about his mother. “Anyway, she said she will reach out to Clay for me. But I shouldn’t pin my hopes on that, because Clay remembers how hard he had it, to step in and be a parent to three boys when she left and he rarely picks up when she calls. I think Greg is the only who does, actually.”

“It’s nice of her to at least try to find Clay for you.” 

“Yeah.”

“I can’t really give you mom advice, cause, well you know,” Michael began awkwardly. Alex caught the motion in the shadows of Michael twirling his fingers over the obvious, and he bit back a smile at that, Michael was always so physical in his words. “But I’m well acquainted with siblings who like to make it all about them, so I get it. It’s hard, trying to have a relationship that is based on endless apologies. Max still beats himself up over the group home, and Isobel gets all weepy whenever high school comes up, I just… I love them both, I love them without needing them bending and scraping for absolution over somethin’ we can’t change. The past.”

“I know. It is one of the things I love best about you. Why do you think I ended our song, that you are the best of me?”

“Well, now you tell me. You know I never heard the end of it,” Michael joked weakly.

“I know I said I was glad you left early, but now, I just can’t help but think about that time as time I wasted not trying with you first. Because ever since we’ve been back together now, I’ve been killing you slowly-” Alex stopped, feeling the renewed despair pool into him. “I’m running out of hope, and I’m sorry. My mom, she- I mean maybe she brings this out in me, but I feel like this might be an impossible task. Fixing me.”

“It’s not, okay? You can’t think like that.”

“But what if it is, are you really willing to give up sex?” 

“Who says we have to do that? So what if we just redefine what sex is? Sure, I will miss riding you or having you on top of me, drilling me into the bed. But… but we’re both creative, so what if we just use gloves and jerk each other off? Maybe I blow you with a condom on or you blow me like that.”

However reasonable Michael was, it did little to calm the insecurity that gripped Alex. Once upon a time in the aftermath of ruins, of alien prisons and a dead mother, the simplest choice for Michael was someone else. And, God, did Alex hate himself for it, but he couldn’t help but remember that fact. When Michael had been drained of all hope, he hadn’t trusted that Alex was going to stick around. Was this simply the shoe on the other foot? As he struggled to trust there was hope for a cure, he still wondered whether Michael would find it easier to love someone else. Maybe Maria would be open to a second chance?

All he could say was, “You’re ignoring a solution here.” 

“You mean we should just break up then.” Michael wasn’t slow, he caught that inference instantly, and voiced the rest of Alex’s fears easily, “If I can’t get laid, then I should just leave you for someone else? Make sure my dick stays wet. Thanks for that vote of confidence, babe.” 

Well, that was a trigger for them both, and Alex knew it when he said it. Still, it was a bigger elephant than Jesse Manes at this point, avoiding the ways this “problem” could be solved by simply going their separate ways.

“It’s not just sex. I swear, I’m not pushing this, okay? I don’t want to break up with you, I especially don’t want you to leave, but I think we should perhaps talk about how realistic it is to believe we can continue like this indefinitely.” The dark helped as Alex blinked quickly, the weight of his words settled on his chest, stone by stone by stone. This was his own private peine forte et dure, squeezing out the confession from his lips as the facts kept adding up. “I miss being touched, I miss being held. Something as simple as being hugged, I just miss it. I’ve taken to letting Kyle give me ‘bro’ shoulder bumps, and bribing Liz into leaving her work long enough just so she’ll let me hold her hand without gloves in the way.”

Michael stayed silent as Alex continued, trying desperately to keep his words close to the truth, and not sharpened like knives, “Before all of this, I had two people who I could count on, they were always welcome inside my defenses, and now, I don’t have them. Both you and Maria are under attack now by me. So what do I have to look forward to?”

“Alex…” Michael finally breathed in the dark. “Of course, I want you to be happy. I want you to have everything you need in life and if, if we can’t fix this, and we need to -” His voice died before he could say it. “I’ll do whatever you want. It’ll be hard, sweetheart. Trying to be just your friend again while I know that you love me? Fuck, and full disclosure, just thinking about you being with someone else makes me want to break things.” 

With a watery blink, he whispered back honestly, “Me too. Thinking about you with someone else makes me want to shoot things.” 

In the time after Maria, the only comfort Alex had had was that it appeared Michael was simply having fun without any real intent. First names only, in the times he had seen Michael out with someone else. He wasn’t sure what he would have done if Michael had dated in earnest again, this time a stranger, and he was fully aware of what a hypocrite he was since he had had Forrest Long at the time by his side. Just the awareness that Alex had of himself, that the temptation of hacking to ruin credit reports and add innocent parties to the ‘No Fly List’ was there, a hair’s breadth away.

Maria had been the exception but that was only because on some level, despite what he had said in contrast, Alex had never stopped believing that he and Michael were destined to be together again. At some point, he just knew that the past would stop mattering, that the present would let them both heal, and they would finally be in a place to choose each other freely. He knew it, deep in his marrow. Untangle his double-helix, he felt that Michael’s name would be found there, scribbled in between everything that made up Alex himself. The irony of the current situation. 

He thought about that admission Michael had made to Kyle, the ten sexual partners in the last six months, and that returned the rush of insecurity all over again. They had circled the subject at least tonight, anything more, and Alex worried about falling into that old argument, of leaving.

Swallowing again, Alex offered a gentle subject change, “It wasn’t all bad news today. I put in for my retirement.”

“Burying the fucking lead, Alex, seriously?” Michael shot up from the couch. “Wait a second, why now? Don’t you need that access to um, like Area 51?”

There were several answers to that question. The darkest why was there was a very real possibility of death behind curing him, and the thought of giving any more valuable time to the Air Force left a bitter taste in his mouth. He knew he couldn’t mention that to Michael. “Now, because I spent the last year trying to gain the upper hand on my family, and it was kind of pointless, the only thing I managed to accomplish was securing the school for Liz’s work. Everything else I’ve learned, I’ve done it breaking the law, and I can do that just as easily as a civilian as I can an officer.”

“I mean, I can’t say I’m unhappy to hear this, just- you’re doing it for you right?”

“I’ve always made this decision for me, past and present, Michael.”

“Good. I know a little bit about making decisions in a crisis, and it, not always, ending up being what I needed,” he laid back down, his voice vulnerable and shrewd in his observation. Alex ached, hearing the echoes of past hurts in his voice and that want, that never went away, was back. Using touch to sooth, it was their first shared language.

“This was a win-win, okay? Leaving the Air Force now. I needed it, um, we needed it. Things are fucked enough, I don’t need the military having access to my blood right now either. I’m done being a weapon in the hand of the government.”

“Sorry, I’m not going to make a joke about you being half-cocked or full cocked in the hand-”

Rolling his eyes in the dark, Alex blushed at his unintended wordplay but he let Michael lighten the air between them, “You’re such a dick, thanks.”

“You know, this thing that happened, it could be our villain origin story, Alex,” Michael picked up again, humor still in voice, as he shifted back onto his side. “The dangers of a space alien falling in love with a sci-fi geek, it’s not like I wasn’t warned. Already living in one of your comic book stories right now. Like X-Men.”

“No respect for jumping genres, but are you saying I’m Rogue and you’re Bobby?” 

“I was really leaning toward being Wolverine, like in the fanfic.” 

Only a second passed before they were both laughing helplessly in the dark together. Perhaps the laughter was a little too desperate, too close to hysteria, but it was infinitely better than crying together.


	8. Chapter 8

There was a human-shaped shadow in the back seat of his Explorer, parked on the edge of the Roswell Medical Center’s lot. Just down the line of cars was the black Suburban from his neighbor’s surveillance cameras. Alex didn’t even need to really look, he knew the plate would match Clay's. 

Even though he hadn’t expected it, his mother had apparently come through for Alex.

Alex turned back to where Gregory was half a step behind him. It was, outside of the need for an autopsy, impossible to access his DNA profile online with the Air Force. Instead, they were using his closest familial relative as a rough guide. While Gregory was aware of the surface details of Jesse’s obsession and the government interest in aliens, sharing just what had been done to him had horrified his brother. 

It was lucky that he had just Greg in tow, that Michael was back at the junkyard finishing a tricky engine rebuild for Sanders. “Did you know about this?”

“No,” Greg replied, drawing his broad shoulders together in preparedness. Although he was currently an elementary school teacher, his past vocation as a Navy SEAL was still there, shallowly under the surface of geniality. 

Together they continued the approach to the car, Greg drawing up on the passenger side naturally as Alex continued to the driver’s side. Through the windows, Clay didn’t move from his position on the back seat, just patiently waited for them to enter the car. With a final look of warning to Greg, Alex placed his hand on the door and swung it open.

“Hello little brothers,” Clay greeted calmly, raising his hands to show his open palms. “I heard you were looking for me.”

Of the four Manes boys, Clay was the one who most strongly resembled their father. Granite sharp features, sandy blonde hair, those same big hands, the only mark of their mother was found in his dark brown almost-black eyes and the curl of his lips, Mindy’s smile stamped on his face, fleeting and underused. 

Growing up, Alex had been the closest with Flint, and then later to Gregory, when he had overheard Flint complaining that Alex was just trying to turn their dad into a villain by provoking the beatings through his antics. Jesse would finish with him for the night, leaving the bruises rising on his skin or the blood dripping from Alex’s body while he was displayed in front of the others as the ultimate example. What had stayed longer with Alex was looking up afterwards and seeing his father’s same closed expression on Clay’s face. It had built a hard to shake distrust inside Alex. Fair or unfairly earned, he couldn’t stop his heart from beating in fear when Clay had come close to him growing up.

At least now, the distrust was earned.

“I think you know why I was looking for you,” Alex began, as he took his seat behind the wheel and turned to face Clay. “I’ve learned, when someone attacks me, it’s usually family.” He flicked his gaze to the side, toward Greg with a half-smile meant to exclude him.

Clay followed the look, and smiled diplomatically in response, “Usually, when someone saves you, Alex, it’s also your family.”

“Well Greg saved me by putting a bullet in Dad. Tell me again, how have you saved me?” 

While that wasn’t common knowledge, saving civilians from the fire had been used as the official cause of death, Clay showed no surprise at hearing the real reason behind Jesse’s demise. It was as Alex suspected, his brother wasn’t spending his time as a member of the Army reserves, but instead was engaged in some level of top secret military operation. 

He turned toward the hospital, not answering Alex’s question and waved at the entrance, “That place is for someone who is sick, and you’re not sick, Alex. So whatever you’re doing in there, is a waste of time. You’ve been given a gift.”

“Abducting me for two days and turning me into some walking biological weapon is not what I consider a gift, and it’s certainly not ‘saving me’.” Alex sighed in impatience. Hearing these talking points from yet another member of his family scraped at some barely healing wounds, the poisonous tree that had started with Harlan in 1947, but spread to so many members. Even Tripp only counted as a hero when he was lined up against the rest of the family tree, because at the end of the day, Nora had still died after 70 years of imprisonment in Caulfield.

While he could never completely quash his PTSD triggers around Clay, he also had never thought his brother would involve himself in this Project. Clay had been a straight-A student, with offers from the east coast Ivy League schools before he had decided on West Point. Their father had kept Flint close to him, feeding him lines about masculinity and the real power being in the master chiefs, and that narrative only picked up strength as Clay, the oldest golden boy, rose in the officer ranks in the Army.

All of that meant was Alex had truly thought that Clay was beyond falling into line with their father.

“Ah, you think this is about what Dad and Flint were up to,” Clay commented, before turning his attention to Greg with a curious look. “Has Alex shared with you the whole white whale vendetta that Dad had? Hunting the aliens that were on this planet, as if that was the real threat.”

“Dad tried to kill them all, tried to kill Guerin in particular,” Gregory answered, looking briefly down at his hands as if he was seeing the gun he had used that night. “Not sure if I see the difference between what you did to Alex, and what he wanted to do-”

“That’s because you’re limited in your thinking,” Clay dismissed the comment and returned his dark-black gaze to Alex. “I don’t give a shit who you fuck, brother. Truly. Flint’s little bomb? It’s cute, but it’s also the product of limited thinking. When you’re dealing with a species that has conquered long-distance space flight, the idea that they wouldn’t have defenses against a launched weapon is ridiculous.”

Seeing both Alex and Gregory staring at him, without comprehension, seemed to irritate Clay greatly as he sighed, sweeping his fingers through his short, dark blond hair. “Dad made us read Sun Tzu every night, and apparently you didn’t learn anything either. _‘The greatest victory is that which requires no battle’,_ ” he paused for effect. “No? Still not getting it yet? How about this one, _‘When the enemy is relaxed, make them toil. When full, starve them. When settled, make them move.’_ If you were a superior force, and you happened upon a planet that nurtured your people, would you make allies of the existing population or would you reduce them to labor and resources? Come on, you are walking in our ancestors’ footsteps, Greg, right now.”

“You made me poisonous to aliens, because what, you think we’re going to be colonized by them?” Alex blinked once, twice as he absorbed just how far gone his brother was. “It’s been 70 years, and they were refugees fleeing in the first place, they aren’t some occupying force to fear-”

“Ever wonder who they were fleeing?” Clay cut him off with a flat grimace. “Yeah, the first ships that crashed here were mainly women and children. Nothing to fear, merely sheep, the opposite of the conquistadors that started this country. But the alien you so charmingly named Mr. Jones, he was a wolf, and he sent a signal back to their planet three months ago.”

“The break in at Area 51,” Alex replied to Greg’s puzzled look. “Michael’s mother had this guy, err, Mr. Jones, imprisoned for 70 years, until Dad reassembled the remote that turned off his cage. I thought we had stopped him-”

“You were a step too slow. Whatever he did to the ship wreckage, released a powerful beacon. Everyone’s GPS device was useless, for about an hour as a result. And NASA tracked the signal, it was pointed at an area of space where they theorize a black hole exists. Or it could be a wormhole.” Clay shrugged, the details of astrophysics didn’t concern him. “The chain of command that has been briefed on aliens, is worried. We might have maybe a year before someone comes here looking. We have to be ready, we’ll never out fly them or out shoot them, but we can at least make ourselves highly unpalatable to a superior force.”

Silence fell inside the closed vehicle as they all worked to absorb the information. It still felt like something out of a bad science fiction movie, to worry that an invading alien force was bearing down on the planet for conquest. Even with all the evidence about his alien roots to the contrary, Alex couldn’t see Michael as anything other than the man he loved, regardless of species. 

“Your chain of command authorized doing this to Alex without his consent?” Greg finally asked, incredulous but not about the subject of an alien invasion. 

For the first time, Clay looked like the brother Alex remembered growing up with, showing a somewhat chagrined smile. It was a look that Clay had flashed when Jesse had questioned him over the amounts of English homework still left to complete while he worked on extra credit in math. “Not exactly. What we gave Alex was more of an early prototype. It’s too slow acting to be really effective in sabotaging a potential slave population. And it also requires too much close contact, I don’t want our people to have to get fucked in the ass in order to take these bastards out.”

Alex glanced down, feeling the bubble of fury churn inside. After all this time, it was still about his sexuality. 

“We’re working on something that’s faster acting, more potent, that’s communicable to other humans, where all it takes is just skin-to-skin contact, and that superior alien immune system breaks down under it,” Clay finished with a flourish. “Our ancestors were ravaged by European diseases, it feels a little like sweet revenge to turn that strategy on a conquering space invasion. I mean, we’re still ants compared to them, but at least we can bite.” 

“What if you’re wrong?” Alex asked, finally finding his voice. He could see in the background, the general ebb and flow of the hospital continuing on, with people seeking help and others helping in return. Just as some humans sought out to harm others, there were more, infinitely more people in this world just trying to move through it in such a way to leave the least amount of harm behind. His brothers, his father, they all eagerly projected the worst instincts and motives of humans on to aliens. As if a race that had conquered space flight would be interested in the same type of petty harm and gross war crimes that humans engaged in daily. That was the short sighted thinking in Alex’s mind.

Clay opened his mouth and then shut it. 

“What if you’re wrong about, not just an invasion coming, but the purposes behind it?” Alex continued with a growing rage in his voice,“This thing you did to me, to protect me in some sick way, can it be undone?”

“Undone?”

“Yes, can you cure me? Can you make it so my cells stop making that poison?”

“In the very unlikely event we’re wrong about the invasion, why would we cure something that only affects the enemy?” Clay frowned, before shifting uncomfortably on the backseat cushion. “It doesn’t affect humans at all. You’re free to live your life however you want, just as long as you’re not fucking one of them.” He read the expression in Alex’s eyes, “Oh come on, I’m telling you they are coming, and the first to die when they arrive will be the sleeper agents on earth _and_ the collaborators. You.”

“I’m not free to live my life, Clay. What you’ve done to me- you’ve stripped me of my own free will, all to save me from some hypothetical overlord. You get how you sound, right? And you thought Dad was Ahab?” Alex pressed his lips together before turning back to face the steering wheel at last. His neck prickled at the move, leaving an enemy at his back. “I can’t forgive you for that, and maybe you don’t care about that-”

Greg spoke up, with a quiet seriousness next to him, “I don’t forgive you either, brother. You have acted as if you have no family here. I think that’s how I should treat you going forward.”

That finally registered on Clay. It was, even as boys raised largely apart from the traditions of their mother by Jesse Manes, a very serious charge to make regarding family, especially by a man respected by the tribal leadership like Greg. 

“You don’t mean that-”

“I do, and our mother will agree,” Greg stated, with authority. “Perhaps you’ll find Flint as enough of a family for you, but our ancestors-”

“Fine,” Clay cut him off roughly, conceding fully under the threat but not graciously. “What do you want then?”

It was pressing the advantage of emotional manipulation but Alex had to try, “I want records of everything you did, even if it can’t be undone. Get me that, and I will consider forgiving you and seeing you as my brother again.” Greg nodded in agreement.

The door clicked open, as Clay stepped out of the car, “I did this to save you, but if this is the path you want to walk, fine. I’ll get you what you want. It won’t make a difference in the end. What’s done is done.”

The car door slammed shut. 

After a moment, Greg turned to place his hand on Alex’s, where it was still gripping the steering wheel firmly even as the car stayed off. “Do you think he’s right?”

“About aliens coming?”

“Let’s solve the problem in front of us. Do you think he’s right about what they did was permanent?”

That was a thought that Alex had turned upside down more than once in his head and couldn’t shake the forbidding feeling he had. The fact he was the subject of a failed trial extinguished a few more hopes he had inside. The Project had moved onto a new experiment already, abandoning the previous work. No one returned to a failed trial in order to create an antidote. “I don’t know, I want to believe he’s wrong.”

“So do I. You and Michael belong together,” Greg squeezed his hand again, before pulling away. They both watched the black Suburban pull away from the parking lot, spinning its tires on the open road. “Otherwise, what was the point of all you went through?”

***

A few days later a thick manila envelope appeared inside his locked SUV on base. True to what Clay promised, there was a detailed analysis of the experiment, along with two vials inside, innocuously labeled ‘Before’ and ‘After’ with a long string of numbers preceding it. His eyes glanced over the documents, but he knew he lacked the background to make much sense of them. 

“I have the goods from CM,” Alex texted to the chain containing Kyle, Liz, and Charlie that Michael had jokingly named ‘Grey’s 👽 Anatomy’ and then sent another message, separate to Michael, “order a pizza, might be home late.”

When he swiped his cloned access card to enter the research wing of the hospital, he shouldn’t have been surprised to see Michael leaning against the wall, dirty cowboy boots out of place in the mix of foot traffic by nurses and doctors. 

“Sorry sweetheart, I know you too well. You should have said tacos, because we just had pizza last night.” Michael smiled, unrepentant in his presence before zeroing in on the yellow package tucked under his arm. “Let me guess, Clay dropped in?”

“Yes, and I didn’t want you to get your hopes up-” Alex sighed, shaking his head. 

Before Alex could open the door to the lab, Michael stepped in front of him, blocking his path. Goosebumps prickled over his skin at his nearness, even as his heart picked up from the danger. They both knew the risk, but Michael still placed both of his hands on Alex’s shoulders, carefully covered by Alex’s black leather jacket. 

His eyes wide, he waited as Michael closed the scant distance between them to press a soft, closed mouth kiss on Alex’s cheek. It was a low-level gamble, but still fire licked along his skin at the kiss. Michael seemed to read it on his face, and chuckled deep in his throat, “Don’t fuss, but a little bit of you won’t kill me, and- I thought you could use a reminder of what hope is.”

He wasn’t wrong, Alex had forgotten what hope was, especially after his conversation with Clay.

Clearing his throat, Michael finished opening the door, revealing that Alex’s text had been effective in summoning everyone. Kyle and Liz looked up from their work around a microscope, with Kyle looking a little less put together than usual. He was on the tail end of a long shift at the hospital, whereas Liz was fresh-faced, wearing what looked like one of Max’s old shirts. Apparently bending the rules and ethics of science was forgivable by Max as long as his brother was the beneficiary. Finally, at the far end of the lab, and still somewhat an outsider among them, was Charlie, tapping a pen restlessly against a stack of papers.

Alex lifted the package that Clay had left, “Here’s everything that they did to me. My brother is still silent on exactly who he was working with, but I think judging by the redacted watermark on these documents, it’s probably that pharmaceutical arm of Deep Sky.” Liz’s greedy hands grabbed it from him, slicing open the package with a too-eager stab of a pen knife. Kyle stepped back with Alex out of caution of her zeal.

One by one the packet of results were handed off between the four of them, with Alex watching from his seat, hoping against hope that his suspicion was wrong. The hard plastic hospital chair hadn’t grown any more comfortable since the last time he had been here. His hand went down to his prosthesis to rub lightly at the seal, an old self-soothing habit as he waited. 

And one by one, Alex watched as his friends made it to the end of the research, stone faced and discouraged. It was what he had expected, his brother was a lot of things, but he was not a liar. After his surprise meeting with Clay, he had shared the greater details with everyone, the purpose behind what was used on Alex, the fears that Mr. Jones had indeed summoned some sort of armada from their home planet, even the misplaced motive that Clay had cited. The only thing he had kept to himself was the revelation that it wasn’t reversible. 

Michael kicked a chair with his boot, sending it harmlessly across the floor to slam into the lab bench. He dug into his jean jacket, pulling out a bottle of acetone and uncapped it to drink deeply. “God fucking damnit.”

For once Kyle said nothing at the outburst, just shuffled the packaged documents in his hands while avoiding Alex’s eyes.

“All right, that wasn’t good, but it’s not over,” Liz replied, her voice infused with forced cheerfulness. “Just because they never intended on a cure, doesn’t mean one isn’t out there to be found.”

“That’s what I like to hear, unfounded optimism,” Charlie drawled, before slipping on a fresh pair of gloves. “Ready to run test number 901 then?”

Alex watched them cluster around the microscope, two heads, light and dark, pressed close in collaboration. Kyle sat a few feet away, seemingly rereading the whole set of print outs all over again obsessively, his dark eyes tracking back and forth over the paper. Meanwhile, Michael was half bent near the corner of the lab, clutching the fallen chair with white knuckles, as if he was debating on picking the chair up or hurling it further. 

Picking his way across the shiny linoleum floor, Alex drew closer to Michael but still within that safe bubble of space dictated by the poison coursing through his body. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Michael replied dully, slowly righting the chair. “You weren’t surprised.”

“No, Clay told me as much, when he tracked me down.” Alex shoved his hands in jean pockets, to keep from reaching out. “Sorry I kept that from you, I just- I think I was hoping he was wrong, and no sense in both of us being disappointed.”

“Back to saving me from heartache again. You know how much I love that.”

He winced, acknowledging Michael’s point. While they were both getting better at talking things out, there was no denying the old habits were still there between them. He couldn’t stop himself from wanting to spare Michael more pain, more disappointment. “Listen. Speaking of that-”

Immediately Michael lifted his hand, “No.”

“Come on, we’ve talked about this. I hate it too, I really fucking hate it.” Alex took a deep breath, and let himself fall into another old habit. It wouldn’t take a lot of words, he knew that from experience. Just enough, just the exactly wrong words and- His stomach twisted in sickness, but he could do this. “Remember what you said to me, in Caulfield?” Michael drew upright, as if he had been struck physically by the mere mention of the place. “That we’d been holding onto this thing and it’s gotten us nothing? I think-” 

“Alex, no, whatever you’re thinking, don’t.” 

“I mean, maybe I was kidding myself, thinking with my dad dead, it was finally safe to be with you. Because every time I turn around, my family gets between us. First him, then Flint, and now Clay. Aren’t you tired of my family trying to kill you?” Alex kept talking, holding Michael’s gaze as his eyes grew wider as the words kept landing with relentless honesty and a sheen of tears bubbled up. “You tell me it’s not me, it’s not my fault, that I haven’t done these things to you and guess what, it just doesn’t matter! I can’t seem to move this weight. They just keep winning.”

“They are only winning if we give up, but we can get through this, Alex,” Michael insisted, his voice getting louder. Neither one of them paid attention to the audience they had gathered, as Liz and Charlie stopped their work in front of the microscope and Kyle had dropped any pretense in reading. “Don’t give up now.”

“You think I want to give up? I don’t. You are the only thing that has mattered to me since I was 17. I finally have you, and we had a really good time the last two months, but we’ve been at this a while now, and-” 

“I swear to God, don’t finish that sentence,” he begged, even as Alex shook his head. 

“It’s written in black and white in that package, Michael. They used technology from your people to do this. That’s what everyone has been telling me, if we can just get access to that, we could undo it. Well there’s no gaining access, so there’s no fixing it. We need to face the truth now.”

“I know it’s bad, it’s a big setback, I know you’re panicking, and we both have that voice tellin’ us ‘why bother’ but you have to ignore it, sweetheart.” A tear slipped down Michael’s face. “We can still be together, we’ll just have to have workarounds.”

As always, seeing Michael hurt like this, was its own version of torture for Alex. 

After twelve years, he knew there was no such thing as pulling off the band aid with them. Also at one point, he knew that he was going to trip over the switch inside of Michael, where feeling pain turned into inflicting pain. “We’re doing the workarounds, remember? The separate beds? And always staying at arm’s-length from you? Leaning on latex gloves and damn handjobs through our clothes. You deserve more than this half-life of intimacy.”

Normally this would be where Michael would lash out at him in return. Any suggestion of deserving something, any hint that Alex was acting as Michael called it once ‘Benevolent Dictator’, it was historically the lit match to the pools of gasoline. Their past remained drenched in accelerants, with no lack of words to feed the oxygen and spark the inferno. 

Except.

Except no. 

Not this time.

Michael wiped roughly at his face, his voice calming slightly. “We had a lot of sex before we noticed what it was doing to me, so maybe we just space it out.” His bitten lips red, even as they slipped into an uneven farce of a smile. “Just be like an old married couple where we fuck on birthdays and anniversaries. You’ve always taken my breath away, Alex. This time it’s just a little more literal.”

Goddammit, Alex thought. Michael was still trying so hard, offering himself up like a sacrifice without hesitation. As if Alex was even worth it. It was no wonder he was selected as an instrument of destruction by Clay, look at what he had done out of love to Michael. 

He closed his eyes, and dug down deep inside for that sliver of resolve. He was capable of monstrous things to protect Michael, Alex reminded himself. “Well maybe I deserve more. I have lived my whole life being told that my desires were wrong, Michael. I’m still working on that, I’m still working on trying to love this body of mine, and I can’t do that if I know I’m making you sick when I touch you. If I know that I’m poisoning you, even if it’s just a little. Even if you heal from it, because afterwards we spend a week avoiding each other.”

The chair, already abused by Michael’s boot, flew across the lab without a touch. Just as it was about to hit the wall, it halted in mid-air and then slowly floated to the ground. The tiniest ping, of the chair legs meeting the ground, echoed in the silent lab as it rested safely on the floor.

Michael’s nostrils flared in response, his control frayed by the heat of emotion, but it was still ironclad as always. He made no move toward Alex or away, he just stared at Alex, silent, like the mute child he once was. Crawling out of a pod confused and lost, finding himself among the loud and confusing humans, he was always looking for a place to belong. Alex knew that in that moment, he had broken something fragile and haphazardly patched together inside of Michael.

“Wow, that was dramatic,” Charlie commented, breaking the tension and reminding them both that they weren’t exactly alone during their fight. “Are you two done with the dinner theater, or can I make a suggestion?”

She didn’t bother to wait for an answer, she just kept talking through the strained silence and tapped her pen against the manila folder from Clay. “I think we are ignoring the obvious solution here about fixing Alex.”

This time Liz frowned, peering over at one particular study that Charlie had circled, “We’ve been over this, I’m pretty sure that would kill him-”

“Oh I definitely think we should kill him, but not because we’re playing God with his DNA. I think we should kill him because that will kill the retrovirus.”

With that pronouncement, both Kyle and Liz started talking over each other and arguing with Charlie over her suggested plan of action. “Death solves it-” “-should have realized that a bomb maker would come up with that-” “-well she’s right, it is the only way to kill a retrovirus because of RNA mutation-” “-no one kills a patient in order to save them-”

Somewhere in the midst of the discussion, Michael left the lab without drawing the attention of anyone but Alex, with the door silently closing behind him. Afterwards, gazing at that solid door, Alex couldn’t help but think with the darkest gallows humor that perhaps Charlie was the one overlooking the obvious. 

In breaking Michael’s heart, Alex was already dead.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please enjoy the artwork by amanda (bisexualalienblast)  
> (also at the end of this work)  
> [believe in me..](https://bisexualalienblast.tumblr.com/post/637944348983623680/rnm-big-bang-2020-rnmbb-in-sickness-and-in)

As wild as it sounded, Charlie’s idea once it had been fully explained, gained traction with Liz. Even Kyle, after hours of pouring through the data on his own, could reluctantly admit that it had some merit. It didn’t stop Kyle from complaining that killing a patient was usually considered the opposite of a desirable outcome with any medical treatment. 

The issue with a retrovirus was always the propensity to continue replicating in cells. The only thing that stopped that process was cellular death, otherwise an organism would continue on with that mutation. Later on, in nature, it would pass the mutation from the retrovirus onto potential offspring. 

The group that Clay had worked with, was able to accomplish inserting the specialized retrovirus into Alex only through the use of alien technology. It meant, reprogramming the retrovirus could only be accomplished through that same technology. With it clearly out of their reach, Clay was correct in that what had been done, could not be undone traditionally. That however left nontraditional means, like death. Stopping the biological processes completely, would halt the RNA process in its tracks. 

Clay didn’t realize that death was hardly an obstacle to Liz Ortecho these days.

The data that his brother had turned over, did at least outline the protein markers, along with the unique DNA of the virus itself. It allowed Liz to resurrect her work in creating the serum that had saved Stef. Changing the target of her synthetic nucleotide excision repair kept both Liz and Charlie fully occupied for the next week. Once administered, the serum was now designed to neutralize the instruction from the retrovirus; to turn off the attack on the phosphorus meld inside alien cells. 

Once the replication was shut down with death, and the serum stitched a new instruction in its place; Alex would no longer be a walking weapon, weakening any alien he was in contact with. Death, of course, had its own cost. 

“Listen, part of what your brother mentioned,” Liz had begun to explain with an awkward twist of her hair between her fingers. “That retrovirus is designed to replicate in human cells only, part of that first trial at turning humans into bioweapons, so we need to make you a little less human and a little more alien. Like Rosa.”

Kyle had been apologetic as he finished for Liz, “So far the only way we know of introducing the alien protein is through the pods. Rosa was clinically dead. All the theories about the pod inducing just stasis flew out the window when Max pulled her from that pod and her body had healed after death without him doing that hand-thing. Autopsy removes organs, but Max confirmed that he just healed some of the more surface burns and restarted her heart. The pod had done the rest.”

Then finally Charlie spoke up, tactlessly as she had been all along, “Plus, turning you more alien might also give you superpowers too. Picture that the next time you have a squabble with your boyfriend, if he throws a chair, you can just fry the coffee pot in revenge.” Charlie bulldozed on, heedless of the wince Alex had made at the mention of a ‘boyfriend’, “We don’t really have too many options here anyway, your brother’s DNA profile contained too much hereditary drift to put you back exactly human even if we wanted to after this.”

Alex caught the exchange of nervous glances between Kyle and Liz after Charlie turned away to return to her work on studying the pod protein but before he could ask, the door swung open and Michael stepped inside.

Michael, who had successfully responded to all of Alex’s apologetic text messages with single letters, like “K” and “NBD” and finally “CRBT”, which had befuddled his cryptology background until a quick search revealed that it meant “crying really big tears” in response to Alex saying he was upset too over what happened. That google result caught Alex completely by surprise, sparking a giggle at that dried, bored asshole response from Michael. 

Goddamn Alex had really missed him.

In the week spent apart after that devastating fight in the lab, Michael looked really good. His hair was soft and his curls looked well-cared for (was he sleeping at Isobel’s house? Alex did his best only to drive by the public entrance of Sanders once a day) and his clothes were free of wrinkles. To be fair, he looked very much the way he did during the time they had shared his house, absent the time where Alex was actively killing him through their frequent and active sex life.

In complete contrast, Alex knew he looked just like a glance into the future, a murder victim. His hair was too long and hung lankly around his face, but at least it wasn’t violating regulations. His retirement papers had gone through and officially Alex was a retired Captain in the Air Force. The less said about wearing one of Michael’s shirts under his button down flannel, the better. It was the only hope Alex had currently, all of Michael’s clothes had remained at his house in the aftermath of the fight.

“Sorry I’m late for this meeting of Morons Anonymous,” Michael greeted, not sparing a glance toward Alex.

“We wouldn’t start without our president,” Liz replied sweetly in return. “Come on Mikey, you’re not still mad, are you?”

“Am I still mad that you’re recklessly assuming that you can recreate Rosa’s alien murder miracle with-” Michael paused briefly, stumbling over the term to use, “with Alex? What do you think?”

“See, I knew you would hate this, but what other choice do we have?” Liz pointed out reasonably.

Now, Michael finally turned to meet Alex’s gaze directly, “Yes, what other choice did you have, hmm. That’s an excellent question.”

Never one to miss a hint, as heavy as an anvil dropped, Liz looked from Michael to Alex and then started to gather up her belongings for the night. “Well, I think we have everything ready for tomorrow and I should get back to the diner, help Papi finish closing. Alex, if you have any questions- well,” she paused, nudging where both Kyle and Charlie were watching Michael with interest. “You know our number, now, come on guys, we’re finished here.” 

Charlie started to leave with Liz, laughing somewhat under her breath, “ _you guys have first rate entertainment here,_ ” while Kyle needed more of a direct elbow to his side to leave Alex alone with Michael.

After a long awkward moment, as the sounds of everyone started to fade down the hall, Michael finally dug out his keys to twirl in nervousness. “So tomorrow, huh.” 

“That is the plan,” Alex answered, his mouth dry. “I didn’t know if you were aware- I mean, I haven’t-”

“I know. I’ve been busy.” Michael bit out, before finally letting out an exhale. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride home and I’ll tell you about it.”

“I have my Explorer-” he began in apology before stopping when Michael smiled widely in response. “I don’t have my Explorer here, do I? Did you tow it?”

“Might have. Might have been Walt.” That was a smile that meant butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth as he made a full body shrug with his shoulders. “It’s a mystery. Anyway, you want a ride? Or I guess you can call an Uber-”

“Fuck no, the gig economy is the death of proper wage growth in America.”

For a minute, Alex thought perhaps Michael had forgiven him, based on the wide, full-lipped joyous smile he got from that quip. Then as he moved toward the door and passed by the whiteboard detailing some of the math involved in dosing Alex with the right amount of Liz’s nucleotide serum, that bright smile faded. The reminder that death was still the preferred outcome in curing Alex doused that joy.

Quietly he followed in step with Michael as they left the hospital together. Like before, he was well aware of the invisible bubble of space between them, never once did he think Michael’s hand would swing and touch him as they walked, even as he ached for it. Of course, as advertised, his Explorer was nowhere to be found, but in its place in the parking lot was Michael’s Chevy. 

“Not even subtle, taking my spot like that,” Alex observed quietly, as he grabbed at the dash to swing awkwardly into the unlocked truck. “So you told Walt about the steering controls I have for my leg, right?”

“First of all, I haven’t told Sanders anything new about a vehicle since I met him, so yeah, he knows, and second of all, if you would just use the handicapped tag for your car in the first place, I wouldn’t have been able to take your spot, but instead you like being stubborn for some reason-”

“Wow, we’re just going to get right into it then-”

Michael exhaled, at Alex’s quick comeback, before turning the key to the truck. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to jump right on that. I was going to take this slow and reasonably, but,” Michael cut his eyes over toward Alex, a knowing half-smile on his lips, “you kinda know my buttons and I know yours. So sorry about that.”

“I’m sorry too,” Alex laid out quickly, seizing on the opening that Michael had left. “Not just about my car, I mean, about everything. What I did, I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have said those things to you, I wish I could take it all back.”

“Well you can’t. You and I both know it doesn’t work like that,” Michael kept his eyes on the road as he drove slowly through town. The first turn, the shortcut toward Alex’s neighborhood was bypassed, giving Alex some hope that Michael wanted to keep talking. “I know why you did it too, but that doesn’t make it any easier, either.”

“I know.”

“I was pretty pissed about it.” His mouth twisted, that half-smile gone in the wake of bitterness. “I should have been used to it, honestly. It’s not the first time I’ve been on that end of one of your, ‘this is for the best’, decisions.” Michael reached over to place his hand on Alex’s drumming fingertips briefly. “I have never handled it well, and I'm sorry, sorry for how it was before, and definitely sorry for how I reacted this time. That’s in the past though, I mean, I thought it was, despite everything. Cause I told you, that all I want is for you to be happy, Alex, and for you to make it seem like I didn’t care how this was affecting you- that was kind of fucked.” Then to make sure Alex had no misunderstandings about what Michael was talking about, he elaborated, “You do deserve better than to believe you’re anything but something precious to me, okay? And if you doubt that-”

“I’m sorry, I know!” Shame curled around Alex’s tongue, keeping his words dumb and repetitve, but that was all he could come up with to say. “You didn’t deserve that.”

“Obviously, I’m pretty well aware of your family, the garbage that they have put you through all your life, and outside of Greg, they kind of suck.” Michael made another turn, bypassing yet another turn that would shorten their drive. “It’s just, you told me once that I was your family and I might not have been in the right state of mind to understand it then, but I do now. It’s how I’ve always thought of you. So can we just-”

“Yes!” Alex interrupted eagerly. “I want that too, to just leave the rest of them behind, and choose you, Michael. It’s kind of the best part of Liz’s plan for me, turning me a little more alien than Manes.”

“Okay, don’t jump ahead, I haven’t gotten there yet-” Michael cautioned. 

“Okay, sorry, and um, you’re doing way too much of the talking here. I was the one who screwed up.”

After a quick look toward Alex’s face, Michael took his hand off the wheel to make a ‘by all means’ gesture, before zipping his lips together.

With the spotlight on him so to speak, predictably the words slipped through his grasp. Embarrassment left a kind of slipperiness inside him as he reached for anything to alleviate that feeling. The truth was all he had. “My insecurity got the better of me, and I’m not proud of that. And what I said about already feeling like my desires were wrong, that’s a trigger. I absolutely should not have taken that out on you though, it’s no excuse. I love you, I know I don’t say that enough, and I certainly haven’t shown it enough to you-”

“Time out,” Michael lifted his hand like a stop sign. “I get to decide whether you’ve shown it to me, I get to measure that as being enough, okay, and you have. You’ve always been enough. I get insecure about stuff too, and my thing about being left, isn't about you not loving me. I've never doubted that about you.” 

“Shit, I was doing it again.”

“You mean taking responsibility for the weight of the world and deciding that you’re the root cause of everything that has gone wrong?” This time the smile was full, as Michael made another turn, taking them further outside of town. “I’m going to give you that one as a freebie, since your brother decided to be a huge dick, and make this fucked up situation actually centered on you.”

“I’m still sorry, and I’m going to really try to keep from letting my …”

“Control-freak side?” 

Now Alex smiled weakly, rolling his eyes but nodded in wry acceptance of Michael’s offered description. “I’m going to try to keep from letting my ‘control-freak side’ take over and push you away. If you can forgive me?”

“I can, but I need you to answer one question for me,” Michael began seriously, the amusement from before was gone. “You agreeing to -” he stopped, unable to say it, but he gestured with his fingers in the break, “you agreeing to do _this_ tomorrow, that’s not out of some martyr-bullshit is it?”

“No, nothing like that,” Alex rushed in response. “This is the only way I feel like I can take control of my life again, and I think we have established that is one of my most defining characteristics?”

“Definitely one of your most annoying ones,” he agreed, before letting out a noisy exhale. Michael’s shoulders relaxed, as if Alex’s answer released some unseen tension inside. “So I didn’t spend this whole week mad. I was busy actually, I needed to invent a means of monitoring the transfer of protein in your cells while you’re in that pod. If you’re going to be-” Again, Michael broke off awkwardly. “If you’re going to be in that pod, I want it to be for the shortest time possible. Not a minute longer than you have to be. I mean, for you, time ain’t gonna pass but for me- well, it’s going to feel like an eternity.”

“Thank you.” The words felt inadequate as always. “I was a little worried about that. Liz was less than exact in predicting how long this was going to take. How long I needed to be in the pod before it’s safe to revive me.”

“But you agreed to it anyway, not knowing?” 

Alex shrugged. “I figured if it took ten years to regrow actual full organs, a little cellular damage should only be a couple of weeks, maybe a month. My last day on base was yesterday, and I have my bills on autopay, so it seemed like it was a good time for a vacation.” 

Michael snorted at the term, ‘vacation’, but he finally turned back toward the main road where Alex’s neighborhood was. 

“I would feel better if you stayed at the house while I’m gone, if you want, you don’t have to of course,” Alex offered, stumbling hesitantly over his words until he saw Michael smiling again. The joke was revealed as they turned the corner to where his house was and he caught sight of Michael’s Airstream parked in the driveway next to the Explorer. “You bastard.”

Unrepentant, Michael’s smile stretched into a full grin. “So here’s the deal. I’ve gone over everything about five hundred times with everyone, but I’m still freaking out. I would like it if you invited me inside tonight, and with full awareness that I might get a nosebleed later, I want to sleep with you.”

“And by sleep you mean-”

He waggled his eyebrows, “Oh I definitely mean that.”

Alex was silent for a long moment, staring at the house. It was no small request that Michael was making, for a number of reasons that they both knew. Perhaps it was an offer made out of some superstition, though Alex refused to call it a goodbye or one last time.

“If makes you uncomfortable, or it hits that trigger-”

“No, no, it’s okay.” Alex leaned across the truck to kiss Michael softly, one last dangerous touch. “I want to, too. We can do it for good luck, right?”

“It’s much better than rubbing a _rabbit’s foot_ ,” Michael promised, giving Alex a quick kiss before dodging the playful slap for his terrible innuendo. “It’s a shame you won’t even have a chance to miss my sparkling wit.”

“I promise you, I’m going to miss you every minute, aware or not. That’s been true since I was 17, and it hasn’t changed yet.” 

*** 

The world returned to Alex, in stages. Flip-book fast in firework color and confusing in a cacophony of sound.

One moment he was in the cave, surrounded by the glow of the pods, fighting a suddenly claustrophobic grip of too many people in his space. Liz with two large syringes, Kyle watching with fatigue-heavy eyes on his too-handsome face, Charlie taking on the role of scientific observer and then finally, too-far away was Michael, standing to the side with his siblings. He remembered his throat closing in, before anything had really happened, and then-

Then-

Then, Michael was there and the cave was empty. Big gold-dark eyes, ringed with concern, leaning over him with that raspy-rich voice in his ears, “Sweetheart, you’re fine, I’m here, cleared them all out. Not gonna let them have a show, so c’mon let’s get you undressed-”

Then-

Then, slippery with silver enzymes, feeling almost over-heated by the care Michael took in smoothing the mixture all over with his calloused, clever hands, his prosthesis placed with his clothes, the pinch of needles. Once, twice, and the final bone cold feel of the needle in his arm. 

Then-

Then, the world started moving slower, gravity doubling down on Alex, pinned into place with Michael’s voice in his ears coming in and out like a radio station just on the edge of an antenna, “-gonna be mad at you for a while, having to see you like this, goddamnit, love you so much, you better fuckin’ come back to me, if you don’t, I’m coming to you love-”

Now-

Alex kicked upward to the surface of an iced over lake. Light shined through, blinding bright, but he needed to punch, he needed to break through for air, and then the surface broke, shattering into a thousand bright prisms of color over his eyes. He gasped, dragging air into his lungs and his thoughts wavered in disorientation, was he standing on the edge of the cargo bay, was it jump day again? Before he could do more than blink his eyes open, he was caught by a parachute, no, it wasn’t physical it was-

“- Seriously, I’m a doctor, Guerin, if you would just let me-”

Fear. Love. Protection. Annoyance. Love. 

It was Michael, Alex dimly understood as he reached out, infant-clumsy with his fingers to reinforce with touch the overwhelming feeling that reverberated inside his chest like a church bell. His hand was instantly caught and held, the grip tight but familiar with edges of a rough callus registering in his slick hold. “I’m okay.”

The noise of voices belatedly registered, all dropped off into a hush of quiet as Alex slowly sat up, still holding onto Michael’s hand. A warm blanket dropped over his shoulders from above, revealing Maria standing just to the side with a hopeful look with Max and Isobel, watching closely. On his other side, were Kyle and Liz, each of them trying to jockey for position around Michael’s protective presence. Meanwhile, Charlie had dipped her hand into the silver enzymes and was curiously probing the surface of Michael’s empty pod, watching as her fingers dipped inside the surface tension.

“All right, everyone back up,” Michael ordered, his relief rocking over Alex’s senses. “He’s alive, no actually, I changed my mind, everyone get the hell out for a minute.”

He was aware suddenly, that he was sitting in a slightly chilly cave, covered in the viscous film of silver, without his prosthesis and was wearing nothing but a blanket. Normally he would feel the steep drop of embarrassment and anxiety, like an elevator with a snapped cable but currently the steady pulse of love, relief, love, need, from Michael drowned out everything else. 

Holy fuck. Michael had learned to heal. Michael had learned to resurrect someone. It finally registered on Alex that it wasn’t Max pulling him from the pod and restarting his heart like they had originally planned yesterday. Fuck. It only felt like yesterday. How long? As he watched the cave clear out of their friends, Alex grabbed Michael's face, turning it toward him to inspect closely for signs of age. 

“Are you okay?” Michael asked, a laugh bubbling in his voice as Alex ran his hands all over Michael’s jawline. 

“How? How long has it been?” He knew he was leaving smears of silver but he couldn’t stop touching Michael. Each brush of his fingertips set off a pleasant feedback loop inside his chest from Michael of joy, amusement, wonder.

“Two months.” Capturing Alex’s wandering hands with his, it was Michael’s turn to examine him with a critical eye. “Do you feel okay? Does anything hurt? Did you know you’re beaming at me like some mental patient-”

“Nah, that’s all from you,” Alex grinned, feeling the flutter inside. “You did it, how did you do it-”

“I just said it was two months, what else do you think I was doing while you were -” Michael licked his lips, and this time, Alex felt a sharp stabbing feeling deep in his heart as Michael continued, amending his words, “while you were gone. I was practicing, because like hell was Max going to be the one to touch you.”

“Hearing about this mark second hand, it doesn’t do it justice. Oh my god, Michael. You’re- you’re incredible. I can feel it.”

“Well, in a second you’re going to feel cold, so let’s get you cleaned up and dressed,” he motioned to the mouth of the cave, “I was only able to temporarily get you some privacy, Kyle is going to want blood from both of us to confirm that it’s over, and then everyone else is going to want to hug you-” While he was talking, Michael stood up and offered his hands to Alex for balance. From the corner of the cave, several large jugs of water floated over effortlessly. “Poor man’s shower, but it should get most of the goo off of you-”

Alex yelped slightly as the lukewarm water poured over his head, gripping Michael’s hands tightly as he balanced on one foot. The excess remains of the silver washed harmlessly away on the dirt floor of the cave. Just as he started to shiver, another blanket wrapped around him like an affectionate ghost to dry him. Through it all, Michael’s control remained rock-steady with no sign of weakness. 

As he dressed himself in his clothes, the same outfit he had worn yesterday, no it was two months ago, he kept stopping to touch his chest where the warmth of Michael never wavered. With each distracted moment, Michael carefully nudged him to keep going, helping him slide the sleeve and then prosthesis into place. After the fifth pause, where Alex forgot about buckling his jeans in favor of stroking the invisible mark, Michael laughed at him and took over the process.

“Okay you have to stop smiling, you’re going to freak everyone out.”

“Can’t.” The word though, unlocked something in Alex. He realized he was awake, he was healed and he was brimming with evidence of Michael’s feelings, and yet, he hadn’t kissed him. There was a fraction of a second, where Alex felt his brain attempt to come online with another round of second guessing. Doubt. Maybe in two months something had changed. The hand print shouted down every element of fear and insecurity that his mind offered up, and maybe that was why he looked like an escaped lunatic. Only post-surgical morphine had come close to this feeling.

As Michael turned away to bundle up the discarded blankets, Alex moved with intent. Michael made a soft muffled sound of surprise as Alex surged forward to kiss him, but to Alex’s shock he dodged the kiss. “Wait, wait-”

Only the knowledge of Michael’s unchanged feelings, that were bleating furiously in Alex’s mind of joy, kept him from feeling rejection, “Why?”

“I taste like acetone and puke, and then probably more acetone after that,” Michael explained apologetically. “Using my powers, to bring you back, it was not exactly a walk in the park-”

Gripping his hands on Michael’s soft flannel shirt, Alex hauled him forward to kiss him into silence. The bloom of happiness inside Alex went white-hot with joy as Michael opened under his mouth, returning the kiss with need. From white, to red, it was like synthesia as they kissed. Alex groaned deep in his throat as he felt Michael’s fingers thread through his wet hair, turning the kiss from passionate to downright dirty. Whatever worry Michael had about acetone, all Alex could taste in the kiss was relief.

It was stupid to have put his clothes back on, he thought distantly as he tipped his head to allow Michael more access to his throat.

“See, I told you they would be doing this as soon as we left,” Isobel observed, drily.

“Give them a break, he was dead for a bit.” That was Liz.

“Am I the only one that thinks we should test to make sure Guerin’s alien cell crockpot device worked?”

“Kyle, it was more like a pod meat thermometer, telling us when Alex was fully cooked. No pun intended of course. Wow, looks like Guerin is just as physical as I suspected. Oh, I think he’s checking Alex’s temperature right now-”

Disgusted, Kyle groaned out loud. “I know I have told you this before, Charlie, but you are literally the worst thing that has ever happened to Roswell.”

“Don’t listen to him, honey, you’re a treasure and he just doesn’t appreciate your charms like I do,” Isobel purred, before sighing. “Okay, they really need to stop kissing before I have to explain the bees and the bees to Max.” 

Reluctantly Alex broke the kiss, keeping Michael close in his arms as he pointedly ignored the return of their friends. He looked up to meet Michael’s lust-dark eyes and smiled, “I guess we should get this over with. Then maybe go home? I’ve missed you so much, I’m ready to make up for some lost time.”

“Yeah? It was only just yesterday for you.”

“Michael,” Alex started, pulling Michael’s hand until it rested over where the mark would soon appear on his skin. “I’ve been afraid for so long, holding back. Even when I invited you in, I never let myself follow you there. But I’m ready now. I want to come home. With you.”

Seconds passed as Alex felt the champagne bubbling of emotions inside the handprint connection as Michael processed his words. Love again. Overwhelming relief. Then there was a final mix of disbelief and a tired wariness, tiptoeing through the emotional exchange like an overlooked third wheel. It was almost enough to pull the smile from Alex’s lips, except Michael leaned in to kiss him quickly, before tossing over his shoulder to Kyle, “Someone better stick us quick, so I can take him home and _stick it in_ him.”

Michael’s crude innuendo broke up the mood, bringing on a chorus of pained groans (Maria and Max) and delighted catcalls (Isobel and Charlie) but Kyle summed up their thoughts with a suffering grouse, “If I thought Guerin was insufferable before, lord help us now.”

Alex laughed with the rest of them, but he held onto Michael a little tighter, as if he could crush that seed of disbelief inside Michael through sheer determination.

*** 

A trail of clothing spread from just inside of the front door, along the hallway, and into the bedroom, the resultant struggle between Michael’s attempt to show Alex all the minor improvements to the house he had made during the last two months and Alex’s desire to show Michael all the ways he had missed him. The influence of the mark won out predictably.

As they laid there tangled up in the sheets, bare and with the sweat slowly drying from their exertions, Alex pressed a kiss into Michael’s damp, but beautifully full replenished curls. “I’m here.”

“I know. I was there, with the whole resurrection thing,” Michael mused. “It was a helluva light show you missed.”

Alex kept his voice serious, not letting Michael distract him with a joke, “I can feel it though, from the link. You still don’t really believe it, but I’m here.”

“Ah.” 

The hand print was shuffling feelings again, flashing Michael’s emotions rapidly across Alex’s senses, like a child playing a game of 52-pick up. He waited for the chaos to settle, using his finger to trace out letters on Michael’s shoulder in the meantime. The feelings sharpened as an L, an O, then a V were slowly drawn out, until only peace radiated from Michael as Alex finished out an E. 

“When this mark wears off of you and we go back to normal,” Michael began softly, “I need you to remember how I feel about you. I know in the past, we’ve both given each other reason to doubt it, but I can’t hide a thing from you now.”

“I swear, no more doubts.” The past was immutable. The present held the emotional high of the mark with the knowledge that they had survived the latest interference from his family. The future was still unwritten and full of possibility. “I know I shouldn’t have needed this connection to believe you, but that was on me, not you.” Alex reached out and grabbed Michael's hand, holding it in his own for a moment, marveling over the shape of his knuckles, the texture of his skin, the warmth and strength there. Maybe one day there would be a gold band there, on that now perfectly straight ring finger, to cement their bond. Probably. Definitely. With that in mind, he moved Michael’s palm, slowly, to press over the handprint that was now blooming silver and rose-gold on Alex's bare skin. "I won't forget," Alex promised. “Believe in me, like I believe in you.”

The seed of disbelief from before broke into a million tiny particles and was scattered across the curve of Michael’s smile as he pressed a gentle vow against Alex’s lips. “I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>    
>    
>    
>    
>    
>    
> 
> 
> For reblogging if you're so moved. [believe in me..](https://bisexualalienblast.tumblr.com/post/637944348983623680/rnm-big-bang-2020-rnmbb-in-sickness-and-in)

**Author's Note:**

> I have been fortunate to keep my job this year, and so far have avoided any health issues. The same is unfortunately not true of all of our neighbors. It was, and continues to be a very hard year for too many. Writing and sharing fanworks has kept me sane this year, and this story brought my 2020 word count somewhere in the neighborhood of 270K words for RNM. Almost all of it was inspired by the character of Alex Manes.
> 
> Today I made a donation to the Navajo Nation Covid-19 Relief Fund in thanks.  
> [ Donate here if you're so moved](http://www.nndoh.org/donate.html)


End file.
